


This Summer Break

by therudestflower



Series: Pulitzer University [2]
Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Closeted Character, Complicated Characters, First Generation College Students, I CAN'T POST IN SEASON, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, M/M, Trauma, Underage Drinking, Unseasonably posted, complicated families, internships, summertime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2019-10-09 18:48:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 70,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17412275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therudestflower/pseuds/therudestflower
Summary: Spot and David are five months into their relationship and the only people who know are Racetrack and Jack. Not that that bothers David. But summer is coming, and with it their own apartment and a freedom they haven't experienced yet.





	1. Open Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a sequel to Last Winter Break. I try to exposition in this first chapter and future chapters so you don't have to read it if you don't want to, but the basic rundown is: Spot and David are first gen college freshman scholarship students at a university in Manhattan who spend an isolated winter break together and connect. This jumps ahead to the beginning of summer break.

 

Summer in New York all the garbage in the streets rots and smell worse than death.

 

David didn’t know much about Manhattan before he moved there. He didn’t know, for example, that they are no alleys and people just put their garbage on the curb and it _rots._

Spot was not amused by his complete disgust by the smell in the air. When David gagged as they walk past an especially pungent pile Spot rolled his eyes hard.

 

“You need to toughen up,” he said, “If you’re going to spend the summer here, you can’t go around about to puke all the time. It’s disgusting.”

 

Spot is walking with a good two feet between them. He’s wearing a black shirt with the t-shirt sleeves cut off, and the same jeans he’s been wearing since the day David met him, at the retreat for the scholarship program they were both in at the end of the previous summer. The jeans were falling apart, and Spot could definitely afford to wear more than one pair of jeans. Unlike David who was scraping by on his work study and stipend—most of which he sent home—Spot had a burgeoning paper writing business that meant that he could—again—completely afford to buy more than one pair of jeans.

 

Spot caught David looking him over. He gave David a similar once over but kept walking. Even though they’d been dating since January, David still sometimes felt nervous thinking about what he was like from Spot’s point of view. Aside from hating the smell of garbage which was currently pissing Spot off, David knew he wasn’t much to look at. His hair was getting wilder as he went more than one month without getting it cut—his last cut was from Crutchy who only somewhat butchered his hair. He was wearing a debate team t-shirt because all his t-shirts were debate team t-shirts because they were free. Spot thought it was hilarious that he was on the debate team and one drunken night found David’s Lincoln Douglas at state on YouTube.

 

“Oh my god,” he gushed, alcohol on his breath, “You’re fucking ridiculous.”

 

“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for debate,” David said defensively. Denton, their scholarship advisor, had explicitly told him that the only thing that saved him from his atrocious grades an attendance record was his stellar debate team record.

 

Still, Spot loved to find excuses to get him out of his debate team t-shirts. Though maybe that wasn’t because of the word content on them.

 

They were in public though, so Spot wouldn’t dare even imply that he wanted to strip David of his shirt and put more hickeys than were currently hidden by the red cloth. Spot wouldn’t even hold his hand except when he was in a rare mood and he was the one who initiated it. Spot had come a long way in five months, he was willing to tell Racetrack and Jack—their respective roommates—they were in a relationship, but he insisted on keeping it a secret from the rest of the guys they were friends with.

 

David resisted the urge to point out it was 2017 and they lived in _Manhattan._ He wasn’t sure why Spot was so afraid to come out. Especially when half their friends were out and proud. His only previous boyfriend, a guy from high school, was out to everyone in school and David was the one who was more private. But Spot woke up panicked at five in the morning and woke David up, forcing him to walk down the hall to his own room so people didn’t see him coming out of Spot’s room in the morning.

 

David was pretty sure people realized what was going on. Everyone left the dorms in December for winter break when David and Spot were distant acquaintances and when they came back, after David and Spot spending two weeks alone in the dorms, the two of them were spending all their free time together.

 

The guys in their dorm weren’t idiots.

 

And everyone knew they were a week away from living together in a campus apartment for the summer.

 

Today they were heading uptown to a record store Spot loved where their friend Skittery worked. It was ninety degrees and worth repeating that the city stank worse rotting roadkill.

 

“We should be studying for finals,” David groused as they crossed the street. “You need a 4.0, and I can’t afford to get bad grades either.”

 

“Bad grades, bad grades,” Spot mocked, “All you care about is grades. Don’t you care about making Skittery uncomfortable with our presence?”

 

David did care about that.

 

They weren’t taking the subway because Spot had lost his subway pass and wouldn’t get a new June one from the school for another week. Despite Spot insisting he had jumped plenty of turnstiles, David was not willing to let them risk getting arrested. So they walked.

 

Finally, the ended up at the store, sandwiched between a pizza shop and a tattoo studio. David had been there a few times, but Spot frequented it lately, mostly to bother Skittery.

 

When they walked in Skittery looked up from the counter and made a sour face.

 

“We have the right to refuse service to anyone,” he said loudly.

 

“You ain’t refusing nothing,” Spot said, just as loudly. “I’m a paying customer. You love me.”

 

“I love nothing,” Skittery said, “Especially not you.”

 

Spot clapped his hand on his chest. “Skittery. How you wound me. Look,” he cocked his head, “David’s here. You like David.”

 

“I don’t like David.”

 

“More than you like me.”

 

Skittery considered the nodded. “Yes, much more than you.”

 

“Right, so, can you tell me where I can find the Backstreet Boys?”

 

An older woman with short thin hair walks by, watching Skittery, who stood up straighter. Clearly a manager. “Yes of course,” he said in a mock effusive tone, “Right this way.”

 

Skittery lead them to a “Vintage” section in the back where they were obstructed from the manager's view, so Skittery’s posture immediately slumped and he scowled at them.

 

“Are you here just to bug me? It’s finals week. That’s seriously immature.”

 

“We’re also here to get more albums,” David said, “Well, Spot is.”

 

“I know you’re not, considering you’ve never bought anything here.”

 

“I don’t have a record player!”

 

“Get one,” Skittery bit out, “God.”

 

Eventually Skittery found a way to get away from them, and Spot crouched down, filing through some worn metal records. David, who was less interested in music than other things, crouched down next to Spot, who he was deeply interested in.

 

“We should really go home,” David said, “Or we should be getting boxes since we’re moving in a week. Or we should be, I don’t know. Doing something besides annoying Skittery.”

 

“I’m shopping for our home,” Spot insisted, “We need good music. It ain’t all just—”

 

“Taylor Swift?” David suggested.

 

Spot’s face colored. “Shut up. You are so lucky I don’t hate you.”

 

David managed to convince Spot to stop into a few stores and ask them if they had any boxes they were willing to give up—a tip they picked up from Dutchy. By the time they were walking back to the Lodging House, they had boxes spilling from under their arms, getting damp from perspiration and humidity. It was a long walk home.

 

It was dark by the time they got back, and David realized that the library was closing in a few hours. He was best off settling in his dorm and hoping that Jack didn’t decide to throw a party in their room tonight.

 

The elevator was shut down, as always, so they took the stairs, Spot cursing all the way as he continuously dropped boxes from under his arms.

 

“These are going to your room,” Spot said, “You’re the one who forced me to talk to helpless store employees like a fucking weirdo.”

 

“You didn’t speak to a single person we encountered,” David points out, “You were silent the entire time. It was weird.”

 

“Not weirder than you,” Spot said as he unlocked the stairwell door and pushed through. The sound of the floor flooded into the stairwell. “’Hello,’” he said in a mocking high voice, “’My name is David Jacobs, I’m moving in a week. Do you happen to have any boxes you could spare? Sir? Please?’”

 

“I didn’t sound like that,” David argued as he unlocked his bedroom door, “You should be glad I have the social skills to collect us these boxes for no money. Really glad. You should be—”

 

He opened the door to Jack in the middle of doing God knows what with some girl David had never seen. As soon as he saw a flash of skin he slammed the door closed.

 

“Your room,” he said, feeling his face heat. “Y-your room.”

 

Spot perked up. “Is Jack having sex in there?” he asks, trying to shoulder his way past David, reaching for the door.

 

“Oh my god, Spot,” David said, “Your room. Now.”

 

In Spot’s room Racetrack wasn’t having sex, but he was holding court with Kid Blink and Mush, telling a wild story that he shut down immediately once they walked in.

 

“I’ll save this for a later date, gents,” he said.

 

“For our delicate ears?” Spot asked, stepping forward to do a simple handshake with Racetrack, “Much appreciated, Race.”

 

David had a feeling that it was because of him. Everyone still thought he was a goody goody, especially now that he had a summer internship with Denton, who was basically the only authority figure that had any direct influence over their lives. Spot warned him that everyone would think it was King Snitch now, and he wasn’t sure it was true until now.

 

“I’ll leave,” David said, thinking of the obscene display in his room. The common room was no doubt full of people too, but at least these people didn’t detest him.

 

Racetrack waved him off, “You’re always welcome in our kingdom, Davey,” he said. “Just don’t fill it with nerd shit.”

 

“My notes are stuck in my room with Jack, who is going—”

 

Spot grinned at him and David stopped himself from proceeding and saying exactly what he saw Jack doing. “Going down on someone?” Spot asked, “Is that what you were about to say? Jesus, David. That’s filthy. Save us from your pornographic speech.”

 

He’s definitely blushing now. Racetrack saved him by jumping off the couch across the room from their bunk beds and taking some boxes from under Spot’s arms. “Getting ready for the big move to the honeymoon suite?” he asked.

 

Spot glared at him and cut a look at Kid Blink and Mush. “I’m kidding!” Racetrack said a touch too loudly. “Jesus. Everyone knows you two are only living together because the other options are Kid Blink and Skittery.” He turns to Blink and makes a face. “No offense my friend, but we all hear your snoring down the hall. It’s a travesty.”

 

“I like to make my presence known,” Blink grinned.

 

“I sincerely hope we won’t be neighbors in Badger Building,” Spot said, referring to the two floors of student apartments that Pulitzer University owned. “I’d have to call the police.”

 

“Ha! Yeah right,” Blink said, “We all know there’s a warrant out for your arrest in every state in the country.”

 

“We probably will be neighbors,” David said, “Knowing that Denton had a hand in our housing, they probably put us together.”

 

David was a little nervous over everything about the summer. From his internship to the fact that he had never been to Badger Building and had no idea what the apartment would be like. He knew from the internet that they were tiny one-bedroom apartments with no windows in the bedroom and twin beds that he hoped that he and Spot would push together. Spot had shown no interest in their new apartment, he barely seemed interested in his living environment. David had prepared a three-point presentation on why they shouldn’t be roommates in the Lodging House the following year, and Spot cut him off within a minute of it saying, “Yeah.”

 

David blinked. “Don’t you want to talk about it?”

 

“What? You’re staying with Jack. I’m staying with Racetrack. Duh.”

 

David refused to be hurt.

 

He was glad that Spot agreed to live together for the summer. It was true that their other options were terrible, and he thought that maybe Spot would be less closeted with fewer people they knew around.

 

He was dying for Spot to be less closeted.

 

Spot flopped down on the couch, wedging himself between Mush and Kid Blink. “Why aren’t you fools studying?”

 

Mush grins and gestures to David. “Davey got the GPA requirements struck down, didn’t he?”

 

Panic leapt into David’s throat. “For next year,” he corrected quickly, “They’re still in place this semester.”

 

“Oh,” Mush said, alarming rising into his eyes. He jumps off the couch. “Oh my god, I have to study.”

 

“Does everyone think that the GPA requirements were lifted for the semester? The email was pretty clear,” David asked.

 

There were 40 students at their university who were in the Roosevelt Scholarship Program, who were required to have 3.5 cumulative GPAs, which David has successfully argued to the board of directors was unreasonable, considering that none of the scholarship recipients were considered college ready by any measure, despite their extraordinary qualities. It wasn’t easy, and it required several meetings, both with the board and the Roosevelters, but David got it done. Now everyone in the program knew who he was, as did a good amount of the student body. The school newspaper, The Banner, published several articles about it and David still got stopped sometimes while he was shelving books in the library.

 

Kid Blink stood up and clapped Mush on the shoulder, “Everyone but Mush it would seem,” he said, “Come on buddy, I’ll help you study.”

 

They headed out and the second the door closed, Spot got up off the couch and walked over to the bunk bed where Race was sitting on the lower bunk. He pushed him so he fell back on the mattress with an “oof. What the fuck, Spot?”

 

“’Honeymoon suite?’” Spot asked. “What the fuck?”

 

“What?” Race yelled, “It was a joke!”

 

“Awesome joke,” Spot said sarcastically, “Seriously. Great stuff.”

 

“It was obviously a joke,” David defended Racetrack. He wasn’t bothered that Spot is so undone by the idea that someone might think they were together. He wasn’t. “Relax.”

 

Spot pointed to David without looking at him. “Never tell me to relax. Ever.”

 

David filed it away as another of Spot’s many secret sensitive triggers but didn’t back down. “God Spot, it’s a pretty common joke around here that we’re in a relationship. It would have been weird if Race _didn’t_ say anything.”

 

Spot’s glare flickered and eventually slid off his face. “Just don’t do it again, yeah?” he asks, voice uncharacteristically soft.

 

Racetrack raised his hands and crossed himself. “Honest. You only got one more week with me, you don’t have to worry about that again. I won’t say a word about you two. You’d think you’d have some trust in me. I haven’t said boo for months, and I’ve walked in on you two more than _once._ That’s a lot for one guy to bear on his own.”

 

Spot scoffed, “I’m guessing this is a bad time to ask of David can spend the night? Notice I’m asking.”

 

“Noted,” Racetrack said, “Yeah, so long as he keeps his hands off my cereal.”

 

“I would never touch your cereal,” David said seriously.

 

Jack came by and knocked on the room door two hours later. His hair was in disarray and his shirt was buttoned unevenly. “You can come back,” he said, “She’s gone.”

 

David laughed. “You kicked her out?”

 

Jack shrugged, “She kicked herself out.”

 

Whoever that girl was, was the at least the twentieth girl Jack had hooked up with freshman year.

 

David looked back into the room. Spot was on the top bunk on his laptop, and Race was drinking on the couch while watching TV.

 

“I’m leaving,” he tells the room.

 

Spot looks up. “What? Why?”

 

“I need to study,” David said, “I need my notes for that.”

 

“You can bring them here.”

 

David wasn’t pissed about the shoving Race thing. He wasn’t. He just said, “Nah, I just want to grab dinner with Jack.”

 

Spot shrugged. “Suit yourself,” and went back to his laptop.

 

Jack threw an arm around David, “Let’s go to the cafeteria, on me,” he said, “It’s tater tot night.”

Their cafeteria was in one of the new dorms, the nicer dorms, across the street. Pultizer University was composed of pieces of buildings around a few neighborhoods with no centralized locations, and one semester of attending the school was already exhausting. New York was different than Chicago somehow, the streets hit him harder and the crowds were faster and by the time he got to the cafeteria he was exhausted.

 

Jack just lifted an eyebrow when David brings his backpack and clutches his notecards as they wait in the long cafeteria line.

 

David kind of regretted not inviting Spot and Racetrack along. He knew that Spot often failed to eat, and while that wasn’t his responsibility, he was capable of reminding Spot so he didn’t drink his dinner.

 

But God forbid someone see them together in the cafeteria and get the wrong idea.

 

Jack quickly found a table with Swifty and Crutchy, two of the sweeter guys in their program who grinned as they sat down.

 

“Jack, Jack,” Crutchy said, “Good to see you, pal, good to see you.”

 

“Good to see you too, Crutchy,” Jack said cheerfully, “I know I can count on you to be a good dinner buddy.”

 

Crutchy lit up.

 

Swifty, who was on a dancer’s diet and had only gotten a salad, smiled sheepishly when Jack dropped a cookie on his tray. “Jack, you staying here for the summer?”

 

Jack shook his head. “Gotta go back to Santa Fe. Everyone there misses me terribly.”

 

“But you’re homeless,” Crutchy blurted out. Then his eyes went wide, and he looked around like he was checking to see who heard him. “Oh man, I’m sorry Jack. That was rude.”

 

Jack waved him off. “It ain’t rude, it just ain’t true. I always got a place to stay, it’s just a little unpredictable, that’s all.”

 

“I’m staying,” Swifty offered, “It’s supposed to be that a lot of us are.”

 

David frowned. “I thought just me, Spot, Blink and Skittery were staying.”

 

Swifty shook his head. “I just got an internship with Movement Co,” he said. “I’m getting my own apartment because Denton said not enough people applied for summer housing to fill Badger Building. So that’s five of us. Jack, you should consider staying.”

 

Jack shrugged affably. “I got people in Santa Fe,” he said, “I got places to be, people expecting me. Don’t worry about me.”

 

David was worried. He knew from Jack’s casual stories that he spent one night in a park over winter break because there wasn’t someone who was able to host him. Jack’s couch surfing had been happening since he was fourteen, the Lodging House was his most permanent address since his father went to prison. David had tried to convince Jack to stay on campus for the summer—it was free for Roosevelt Scholarship recipients, and almost half of the entire cohort was planning on staying in Badger building. But Jack shrugged him off. He had people in Santa Fe, after all.

 

“But you’re saying, right Davey?” Crutchy asked. “You’re living with Spot?”

 

David nodded, thinking of Spot shoving Racetrack. “Yep,” he said, “We figured since—“

 

“You don’t gotta explain,” Crutchy said, “We all know you and Spot are friends.”

 

“I wish I was living with Spot,” Swifty said, “It seems like it would be fun.”

 

David thought of the times he and Spot had while they were alone for winter break. It was fun, but they were alone then. There would be others around now, and Spot might now be so willing to show him the open affection he only showed when Racetrack was gone for the night.

 

“Right,” David said, “We’re friends. So we’re staying together.”

 

“Good friends,” Crutchy amended.

 

“But not the best,” Jack said, throwing an arm around David’s shoulders, “We’re the best of friends.”

 

Jack drums on David’s backpack while they walk up the stairs to their floor of the Lodging House. When the ended up in the hall, Spot popped his head out of his room and made eye contact with David, then disappeared back into his room. David couldn’t help but follow after and open the door to Spot and Racetrack’s room without knocking.

 

Inside Spot is pulling his mattress off the top bunk. David rushes in and grabs one end of the mattress. He eases it onto the ground with Spot, placing it on the blank space on the floor in front of the TV. He knows what Spot is doing. This is his way of inviting David to spend the night.

 

“I need to study,” he says, unnecessarily.

 

“Study here,” Spot said, not looking at him. He was blinking. David clocked two empty beers on Spot’s dresser and one he just picked up. “I have to work. We can just hang out and just—please?”

 

The please did it. David nodded. “Racetrack?” he asked.

 

“Gone,” Spot said. “We can take his bed too.”

 

“No,” David said, “I think we just need one.”

 

* * *

 

 

When it was time to move out, no one knew their grades yet, so no one knew if they were staying on the Roosevelt scholarship. David had tried to make it so no one could get cut from the program this semester based on grades, but the board insisted it wasn’t fair to change the game partway through the semester. So there was tension in the air as they all drank and packed and got ready to vacate the Lodging House.

 

Spot was crabby all week. He straight up avoided David some days, and so David avoided him, not willing to chase after someone who didn’t want to spend time with him. Then he would show up at Jack and David’s room at three in the morning, asking to go to a diner where they would sit across a booth from each other and not touch. It was pissing David off.

 

Jack threw the final party of the semester in their room. He supplied the beer, Spot supplied everything else and Racetrack supplied the music. The crammed twenty people into their small room and David found himself standing on his bed new to Spot to get away from the crowd.

 

The lights were low and there were too many bodies to really see each other, but David was still surprised when Spot reached down and squeezed David’s hand. He gave him a startled look.

 

“Don’t get all bunched up,” Spot said.

 

“What?” David said.

 

“I said don’t get all bunched up,” Spot said louder.

 

“What?” David said, loudest.

 

“Fuck off!” Spot yelled, squeezing then dropping his hand.

 

“Kay,” David yelled and jumped off the bed. He forced his way out of the room and headed into the lounge at the end of the hall.

 

Spot was close behind him. “What’s with you?” he asked. The lounge was empty, almost everyone on the floor was in their room.

 

“You’ve been in a rotten mood all week,” David said, “It’s fucking annoying.”

 

“Oh, it’s _fucking_ annoying?” Spot mocked.

 

“Yeah it’s _fucking annoying,”_ David spat. “You can’t treat me like a convenient hookup. We’re more than that.

 

Of course, Spot looked around to verify that no one is in the room. “I’m not doing that,” he says lowly.

 

“You are completely doing that,” David said, “What’s in your head? Why are you acting this way? I know you don’t want to be out, that’s fine. I’m fine with that. I don’t get why you are ignoring me though.”

 

Spot rolled his eyes and sighed. He waited. David could wait longer. They’d done this before.

 

“I don’t want to fucking move,” Spot confessed. It was apparently one of those rare times when Spot was willing to be honest and direct and not evade every single one of his questions. “This is where we live. I don’t want to pack up all my shit and move again.”

 

David didn’t know much about Spot’s upbringing, but Spot had let it slip that he’d lived in foster home and group homes all over Brooklyn, aside from the times he’d been on the streets. Like Jack, the Lodging House was probably the place he’d lived the longest.

 

He thought of the one bedroom apartment in Chicago he shared with his parents and siblings. How he’d lived there his entire life and could find his way around it in his sleep. He knew it was a privilege. One he was possibly squandering by staying in New York for the summer.

 

“We’re moving down the street,” David said, “And you don’t have that much stuff.”

 

“Oh, thanks.”

 

“What? Both things I said are true.” Almost everything in their room was Racetrack’s.

 

Spot sighed and sat down on the threadbare couch. “I just don’t get why we can’t stay here like we did for winter break. Why don’t you ask Denty that?”

 

“It’s because there’s going to be camps here,” David said, “I asked. I don’t want to move either, but it’ll be _fun._ We’ll have a kitchen, and a couch. It’s exciting really.”

 

“Only you would think a kitchen is exciting,” Spot said.

 

“I’m mostly excited about us having our own space,” David said, sitting down on the couch, his knee bumping into Spot’s. “No more sneaking in and out of each other's rooms. No more—”

 

Then for the first time in three days, Spot leaned forward and kissed him. He brought his hands up, one to the back of David’s neck and one to the side of his head. He leaned forward, forcing David to lean back. It’s a surprise, but not an entirely unwelcome one, until they hear footsteps come down the hall.

 

Spot was off him like shrapnel, wiping his mouth and standing up. Getting as far away from David as possible. David sat up and looked over to the door. Skittery walked through it, holding a book in his hands.

 

“Your room is violating the noise policy,” Skittery informed him.

 

“It’s the last day of the semester,” David said.

 

“So you should really know the noise policy.”

 

Spot was stiff and pale, “I’m going back to the noise violating party,” he said.

 

“I’ll be right there,” David said. Spot walked out of the lounge, shouldering Skittery as he went. Skittery scowled. David started to follow him but Skittery held up a hand stopping him.

 

David looked over Skittery’s shoulder and saw Spot disappear into his room. Skittery pushed him gently backward, putting him further away from Spot.

 

“Everyone knows about you two,” Skittery said.

 

He should have been surprised but he wasn’t. He wasn’t even a little surprised. He’d suspected for a long time.

 

Still, he said, “Don’t tell Spot.”


	2. Playing House

They got one night in the dorms after everyone in before they had to be out, the next day, by noon. It would have been fun if it wasn’t for Skittery, Blink, and Swifty being there too and wanting for some inexplicable reason to hang out with them.

 

Seriously, they weren’t that great.

 

Maybe David was. But Spot wasn’t _nice_ to anyone, he didn’t get why he and David got interrupted by a knock on his door and found Swifty on the other side, _grinning._ Asking to hang out with them.

 

And of course David went because David actually liked other people, so it was nothing like winter break.

 

They picked up their Badger Building keys from residence life at nine in the morning on the dot, which was basically across town westward and was a pain in the ass to get to. David was polite to everyone in the office and Spot nodded appropriately and took his keys.

 

The lady at the desk handed them each rings with three normal keys and a white rectangular key fob that Spot immediately recognized from the group home.

 

David picked his keys up by the fob. “What’s this?” he quietly asked Spot as they were walking out.

 

“It’s a fob,” Spot said, “You hold it up to a sensor next to a door and it opens.”

 

“Oh like on TV,” David said, sticking the keys in his pocket. “Did you live somewhere with these?”

 

“Yep,” Spot said, sticking his own keys in his pocket. He sped up walking, unwilling to stay in the heat longer than he had to. David tried to talk to him, but he couldn’t focus on his words and hummed noncommittally.

 

“You okay?” David asked. “You gotta perk up. We still need to pack your stuff.”

 

Spot thought of his clothes—almost entirely acquired post-group home, only one black hoodie had stayed with him since he got out of juvie—in his drawers and the records in a stolen milk crate at the end of his bed. He had textbooks he didn’t want, that Jack offered to sell for him, and a mason jar full of bottle caps.

 

David was disgusted by his awesome collection, but he still wanted him to pack it. When they got back to the dorm David wrapped it carefully in newspaper and put it in a box labeled “clothes” that Spot was able to half fill.

 

David didn’t have a ton of stuff, but he had more than two boxes.

 

“We can get your stuff to the apartment first,” David said, “Then we’ll deal with mine.”

 

He had touched all of Spot’s stuff and Spot let him, standing to the side while David deftly balled up his clothes and stuck them in the box. He used them to surround his record player and carefully taped it closed.

 

He was going to live with David, he reminded himself. He still had somewhere to live. No one else was going to live with them. The place had walls and a roof and probably running water and probably a bed and he would be fine.

 

“No,” he snapped when David reached for his model of the Brooklyn Bridge, the one Boots had given him for Christmas.

 

David pulled back but gave him a look. “We’re not going to do this, you know. You’re not going to be a jerk to me. It’s not fun.”

 

“I have some bad news for you,” Spot said, “I am a jerk. That’s just who I am.”

 

“I don’t accept that,” David said, “There is plenty of counter-evidence because prior to the past two weeks you have been very nice to hang out with. Will you stop this once we get to Badger Building and settle in?”

 

“I don’t know,” Spot said honestly, “Just don’t touch that. I’ll keep it with me.” He reached over and took the Brooklyn Bridge off his now empty desk. He felt the ridges and the place where the gold paint was coming off and stuck it in his front hoodie pocket.

 

David nodded. “Do you want the record box or the clothes box?”

 

“The record box, David Jacobs,” Spot said kindly, “I don’t expect you to carry something heavy.”

 

David laughed his “aha!” laugh and picked up the record box with panache then headed for the stairs. Spot had to hurry to catch up. They’d already surrendered their keys. David was leaving his door unlocked and depending on Swifty to let them in, but Spot didn’t have anything left in his room, so he might as well close the door and let it lock behind him.

 

He looked back into the dorm room one last time. It was huge compared to most of the places he’d slept growing up, outfitted with more furniture than anyone could ever need. He glanced at the bunk beds, the consistent top bunk he slept in and the ground where he and David dragged their mattresses and slept under the glow of the now gone TV.

 

He didn’t give a shit about a stupid room.

 

Spot let the door close behind him and followed David down into the street. Badger Building was two block north, a newer building that David easily figured out you had to use the fob to get into. They were on the seventh floor, and thankfully the elevator worked in this building. They rode up the elevator in silence, David periodically readjusting the crate of records and books and sighing.

 

The doors opened to a brightly lit hallway with wood paneling. David, operating on his special David instinct that secretly knew everything, turned left walked for a while then and found their apartment, 7FE. He fiddled with the keys and after a few minutes of fumbling, opened the door.

 

The apartment smelled like paint. It was entirely bare with clear spots on the walls that had been painted over with a slightly different shade of asylum white. There was a green couch with nubby cushions and a coffee table, and two feet behind it was a bar with two stools that windowed into the kitchen. David dropped his box and beelined for the kitchen which was the size of Aunt Elane’s bathroom. Spot walked over and saw David grinning.

 

“There’s a double sink,” he said happily, “That makes it so much easier to do dishes.

 

Spot left David to geek out over the kitchen and walked into the bedroom. It was smaller than his dorm room with two beds on opposite sides of the room and a single dresser squeezed in between them. There was no closet, no window. At the top of the wall that shared with the living room, there was frosty glass, like in some bathrooms, that let in the ridiculously tiny amount of sunlight from the living room window but that was it.

 

In short, it sucked. The whole place was about one and quarter the size of the dorm room he shared with Race.

 

David walked in the room grinning. “This place is awesome.”

 

And Spot couldn’t help but smile. He was sharing it with David, after all. That made it worthwhile.

 

It took two trips to bring David’s stuff over and by the time they were done they were sweating through their shirts. They ran into Blink who was moving in next door—of course—and on their way in for the last trip saw Skittery storming out of the Badger Building lobby with a cigarette between his lips.

 

Finally, they landed in their—their—apartment. David opened the blinds on the one window and let the sun in. He found his $5 speaker from Target and put on some music.

 

Top 40 shit. Nothing great. But it was good because it made David dance as he put his cooking shit away in the kitchen. Spot stripped out of his wet shirt and dropped it on the linoleum floor. He caught David’s eye and grabbed his wrist, pulling him close. David hooked an arm around his back.

 

“Hi,” he said.

 

“Hi,” David said. He leaned in and kissed Spot close to his mouth. “Hey, we have our own place.”

 

Technically it was Pulitzer’s place. “We do,” Spot agreed.

 

“We can do this,” David said, kissing Spot briefly, “And no one will walk in on us.”

 

Spot wove his hands into David’s long hair. “We could even do this.”

 

They ended up on the couch, fumbling around. Spot set to work adding to the growing hickey on David’s shoulder. David let him do it. Spot asked him, before, if he was okay with it, okay with Spot marking him up and David’s eyes just went wide and he said, “yes” in a quiet voice and pulled Spot in for a kiss.

 

The one time David tried to do the same to him, Spot shoved David off then immediately apologized seven times in a row. David just went wide-eyed and said, “Did I scare you?”

 

“No,” Spot said.

 

“Can you use words next time?” he asked.

 

Like he was a kindergarten teacher.

 

David didn’t try again and Spot started saying “stop” when he needed David to stop and they were pretty much golden.

 

They got pretty far along—David’s hand was toying at the waistband of Spot’s jeans when there was a knock at the door. Spot groaned and dropped his head on David’s chest. David lifted his hand to run his hand through his hair.

 

“We aren’t answering,” he said into David’s chest.

 

The knock came again.

 

“They’re just going to keep knocking,” David said.

 

“Not my problem,” Spot said, pressing a kiss into David’s collarbone. He felt good, he didn’t want to ruin that by covering up David’s blooming marks with one of his ridiculous debate shirts and dealing with the assholes in their program.

 

David tapped him twice on the back of the head. “Come on. You have to leave in like an hour to see Boots. We can’t keep going. We might as well—“

 

 

“Fine,” Spot groaned. He pushed off David’s chest and fell onto the floor. “We have to not look like we were just having sex first.”

 

“We weren’t having—“

 

“You know what I mean.”

 

The knocking continued as they put on their shirts and smoothed out each others hair. Finally, Spot stumbled to the door and threw it open, only to find Kid Blink and Mush standing on the other side of it.

 

“He fellas!” Mush says happily. “That took you a long time!”

 

“We were handling a shelving situation,” David said, smoothing out his t-shirt. If he were anyone else, Spot would smack him in the stomach. “How are you guys doing!”

 

Mush beamed. “We’re good! I’m spending the night. Queens ain’t that hard to get home to, but I figured why not!” His smiled dimmed. “Skittery ain’t too happy about him, but forget him, right?”

 

“Yeah,” Spot agreed, “Fuck Skittery.”

 

Then both Mush and Blink _grinned_ at him. “We were wondering,” Blink said, “If you hadn’t finished unpacking. We can help you.”

 

David and Spot looked at each other. Between them, they had six suitcases and boxes, and David had to know that Spot didn’t want other people touching his stuff. David nodded. “Listen,” he said, “Why don’t we go to Tibby’s and get a pop or something? We can worry about unpacking later.”

 

Kid Blink whistled. “David? Spending money on something as fri-val-ous as soda? I can’t believe it.”

 

“Believe it,” Mush said, “He’s got that university internship! That’s mad money!”

 

David blushed. “It’s okay,” he said, “Can swing a pop.”

 

Spot did not want to go anywhere with them. He was tired and turned on and he needed to not be because he was going to see Boots soon. “You go,” he said, “I’m going to take a shower.”

 

“You sure?” David asked.

 

“Sure,” Spot said, “I’m going, after. Did you want to come?”

 

David hesitated. “I went last time. You have some alone time this time.”

 

Spot nodded. It made sense. “I’m gonna” he nodded towards the bathroom.

 

David nodded back. “Okay,” he said, stepping into the hall, grabbing his keys from the ground where he had dropped them earlier. “See ya.”

 

They didn’t kiss.

  

Spot took the subway north to Aunt Elane’s apartment in Washington Heights. He never figured out a good way to spend his time on the subway. He couldn’t work, his laptop made him a clear target and he wasn’t in the mood to get in a fight which would slow down him seeing Boots. One of the first things he bought when he got out of the group home was an iPhone with the maximum amount of storage for music. He listened with his music on max volume to ignore the fact that he was standing in a packed car and someone was touching his arm and his back and leaning against his chest.

 

When they got to his stop he elbowed his way to the platform and practically ran out into the street to get away from a thousand people. The vibe in Washington Heights was different than the East Village, where most of Pulitzer was, but it was easy to walk through the streets and get to Aunt Elane’s walk-up building.

 

Every since Spot got out of juvie he’d had to fight Boot’s Aunt Elane for the right to see him. It didn’t seem to matter to her that for three years, Spot was the only one looking out for Boots and keeping him alive on the streets of Brooklyn. If anything, she was peeved by the fact that he hadn’t done the stupidest thing possible and turned Boots in to a social worker. Not that she ever was so direct as to say that.

 

Still. Things had gotten better since he went to college. Aunt Elane liked that he was in college, and Spot liked that he didn’t have to deal with curfews and check-ins from a group home and was able to see Boots within an hour of Aunt Elane deciding that he could.

 

This visit was prearranged a week ago. Aunt Elane kept him away for two weeks, saying, “I know you need a 4.0 and I know you don’t need distractions.” Spot didn’t fight her because fighting Aunt Elane was pointless, he just tracked down until today when he was officially done with school for the summer.

 

He thundered up the stairs to Aunt Elane’s apartment. The worst part of visiting Boots was that he had to take his shoes off and leave them in the hallway where they could get stolen. They hadn’t so far. But they could.

 

Boots probably heard him outside because he threw open the door and smiled hugely at Spot. “Hey! Hey! Come in! I’m watching TV!”

 

Spot couldn’t help but smile like an idiot as he walked into Aunt Elane’s apartment. It was much bigger than their tiny apartment in the East Village, Spot figured it was rent controlled. Before Boots came along Aunt Elane was living alone in a two bedroom, which she wasn’t rich enough to do unless that was the case. He followed Boots into the living room where Aunt Elane was watching the TV, crocheting.

 

“Hello Spot,” she said, not looking at him.

 

“Uh huh,” Spot said. Then Aunt Elane fixed him with a look. “Ma’am,” he said.

 

“How are you?”

 

“I’m fine.”

 

“How was the end of your school year?”

 

“It was fine.”

 

“Are your grades back?”

 

“No.”

 

“Mm. And what do you think?”

 

“About what?”

 

“About what your grades are?”

 

“I’m sure I’m fine,” Spot said.

 

He was fine.

 

“I did great in school!” Boots said, “They’re going to let me go to high school next year.”

 

Spot dropped onto the couch. He held out his hand for a high five.

 

Boots wrinkled his nose. “I’m not five. I’m going to _high school.”_

 

“I could hug you, Boots, would you prefer that?”

 

Boots huffed and returned his high five.

 

It was a big fucking deal, Boots going to high school. He couldn’t read a few years ago—which Spot recognized was basically his fault—and now he was going to a normal school with normal kids who had probably never spent a winter in the back of a broken down LeBaron.

 

“I’m going to be a Roosevelter,” Boots said, “And I’m going to be there just a year after you! You should fail some classes, yeah? Then we can be together!”

 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Spot said, “I’ll still be here while you’re at Pulitzer.”

 

Boots smiled. “You can live with Aunt Elane since my room will be empty.”

 

Aunt Elane did not look up from her crocheting. “I’m sure Spot does not want to live with me.”

 

“I’m sure,” Spot agreed, “Aunt Elane does not want me living with her. I’m not as fun as you.”

 

Boots hummed. “That’s true.”

 

* * *

 

 

David managed to make one Cherry Coke last three hours while Blink and Mush went through half the menu. They asked for an extra plate and dumped their food in front of him, while David resolutely ignored even as his stomach rumbled.

 

“I’m not hungry,” he insisted.

 

He was going to seriously miss the dining hall.

 

He and Spot had to go grocery shopping, once he got home from seeing Boots. The only thing in their fridge was cheese from Racetrack and their cabinets were empty of anything except Jack’s leftover booze and a stale bag of crackers. He had budgeted $70 which was alarmingly high but he wasn’t sure it would be enough with New York prices.

 

Spot was deeply unhelpful the night before when David asked him to help with the grocery list.

 

“Snickers,” Spot said.

 

“Okay,” David said, “What else—”

 

“The kind that comes in a bag at Halloween,” Spot continued.

 

“I’m sure they have that,” David said, “What did you want for like, breakfast lunch and dinner?”

 

Spot stared at him blankly.

 

“Okay,” David said, “You like french toast sticks from the caf. We can get eggs, milk and bread and make that.”

 

“You can make French toast?” Spot asked condescendingly. “That’s like, a diner thing.”

 

“Yes,” David said, managing not to be condescending. Even though. “I can make grilled cheese too, and you like grilled cheese.”

 

“I know people can make grilled cheese, I’m not an idiot,” Spot said even though he didn’t believe it was possible for a normal person to make French toast ten seconds ago.

They settled on starting with some pantry staples, which again, Spot was completely unhelpful with, and ingredients to make pasta bake, grilled cheese, French toast, BLTs, rice and beans and if they had enough money, some chicken. Plus snacks, which Spot was admittingly more helpful with.

 

He got a text from Spot while he was still and Tibby’s and excused himself to head back to Badger Building. He arrived as Spot was unlocking their apartment door.

 

“How was Boots?”

 

“Awesome. He’s going to high school next year.”

 

David smiled. “That’s great. I know it wasn’t a sure thing.”

 

Spot nodded and opened the door. “It would have been okay if he didn’t. He’s still a fucking smart kid. But this is better.” He walked into the living room—if it could be called that with how postage stamp tiny it was. The entire apartment was half the size of his parent’s apartment, and that was tiny enough as it was. Still, there were only two of them and there were five people living in his parent’s one bedroom apartment.

 

Four. Now.

 

He flopped onto the couch. David walked over and pulled Spot up. “No no. It’s four o’clock and we don’t have any food.”

 

“We can order food,” Spot groaned.

 

“We are going to Morton Williams, and we’re going to the deli by the library and we are coming home and making pasta bake.”

 

“I’m sick of pasta bake,” Spot said lightheartedly.

 

“You think you’re sick of it?” David joked, “I’ve been eating it my entire life. But we can eat something else. I can make burgers.”

 

Spot perked up. “Burgers? You know how to make that?”

 

“I know how to make a lot of things,” David said, “Come on. Let’s go shop and we can figure out more incredible things I can make.”

 

The grocery store was half empty which was good because David had coupons he’d printed at the library and needed time to figure out the per oz prices of everything. Everything was much too expensive.

 

“How much milk do you drink?” David asked.

 

“None,” Spot said.

 

“Okay,” David said, “A gallon is $4.30 and a half gallon is $2.69, so a gallon is a better price but not if we don’t drink it. You can’t freeze milk.”

 

Spot grabbed a half gallon and threw it in the cart. “$2.69 isn’t bad, is it?”

 

“It’s horrendous,” David said, “At Aldi back home it’s sixty-eight cents.”

 

Spot nodded. “So that’s normal?”

 

“No, that’s super cheap,” David said quickly.

 

Spot huffed and pushed the cart past the dairy aisle. “I don’t know why you expect me to know anything about this shit.”

 

David paused and considered everything that he knew about Spot.

 

Fuck.

 

He didn’t know why he expected him to know anything about grocery shopping, either.

 

“Sorry,” David said.

 

“You don’t have to apologize for me being stunted,” Spot said easily.

 

Which seemed like progress somehow?

 

“You’re not stunted,” David insisted as he picked out which bacon package was the most worth the overpriced price. “You’ve just had different life experiences than me. There’s lots of stuff that you’re good at that I can’t do at all.”

 

“That’s true, you can’t steal wallets for shit,” Spot said.

 

“I don’t mean—” David said.

 

Spot interrupted by holding up David’s wallet, a thrift store find with worn leather edges. David grabbed for it and Spot held it away but David was taller. He yanked it out of Spot’s hand and stuffed it in the back pocket of his slacks.

 

“That is by far the easiest place to lift from,” Spot informed him.

 

“I’m trying to make your life fun,” David said, “Come on. Time for vegetables.”

 

“Pass.”

 

They made burgers with 80% lean beef which was pretty good but they still splattered all over their new stovetop. At the store, David tried to convince Spot that they didn’t need hamburger buns or ketchup, that their burgers would be fine with cheese on slices of bread but Spot ignored him and threw them in the cart.

 

“I’m paying for this too, you idiot,” Spot said. “And I’m not penny-pinching.”

 

He tried to pay for the whole thing but David insisted on going 50/50. He was getting paid for his internship, more than he made at the library, which he was working at too. Plus the Roosevelt stipend. So really he could afford half a package of hamburger buns.

 

It still made him nervous. The total for the grocery run was over $70, so they didn’t go to the deli as planned which Spot didn’t question. It was almost worth it for the burgers, which were damn good.

 

They ate on the couch because the barstools that faced the bar that separated the kitchen from the living room were super uncomfortable. They didn’t have a TV to look at, so they occupied their attention by talking.

 

They were getting better at talking. David knew he talked too much sometimes when he got excited, but Spot did too. And he listened when David talked.

 

“Have you ever seen fireworks?” Spot asked.

 

“Yes, obviously I’ve seen fireworks,” David said, “Navy Pier, ever heard of it?”

 

“‘Ever heard of it?’” Spot mocked, “I didn’t know they have fireworks.”

 

“They have fireworks twice a week in the summer,” David said, “I can’t really see it from our apartment, but our parents took us a few times. Why do you ask?”

 

Spot took a bite of his burger and talked through it. “I don’t know. Barbeques, I guess, and fireworks. Seems like a wholesome thing. Seems like a you thing.”

 

“We live in the city,” David reminded Spot, “Nowhere to barbeque.”

 

“But like, do you have family in the suburbs who you go visit, and _they_ barbeque?”

 

David laughed. “Yes,” he said, “We have family in Skokie. But they don’t barbeque. Sorry to disappoint you.”

 

“I thought maybe you knew how to make ribs,” Spot said.

 

“Ribs are _expensive,”_ David said, “I’ve never eaten them.”

 

Spot stole a chip off David’s plate. “Never?” he asked. “Seriously? Not even when your parents just go a check or something?”

 

“No?” David asked. He was surprised that Spot was surprised. “Do you want me to learn how to make ribs?”

 

“Will you if I buy them?” Spot asked.

 

He was being so earnest.

 

“We could learn together,” David suggested, “You could do it too.”

 

“David I would probably kill you,” Spot said, “And I don’t want you to be dead.”

 

They cleaned up and Spot didn’t make fun of him for scrubbing the stovetop. They went to the bedroom and stood in there.

 

“There’s two beds,” David said.

 

“Observant,” Spot said.

 

“There’s two of us,” David said, “And we’re in a relationship.”

 

“Amazing,” Spot said.

 

“Do we…should we…push them together?”

 

Spot scratched his chin. “I mean. What if someone comes over?”

 

David’s stomach sank. He had been—fantasizing was the wrong word, but he’d been _thinking_ about this for weeks. Finally having more than three feet across to share with Spot. Not having to drag their mattresses onto the floor to sleep together.

 

“Then we won’t have anyone over,” David said, “Or we’ll lock the door when we’re not around. We have keys to this room.”

 

Spot nodded stiffly.

 

“Do you not want to this?” David asked.

 

“I don’t—“ Spot started then stopped. “I like sleeping with you. But I’m not—I don’t want to. You can’t _make_ me—”

 

“I’m not going to make you do anything!” David said, voice rising. “We’re not doing that yet, I know. We don’t have to. I’m not in a rush. Us sharing a bed doesn’t mean we have to sleep together. We’re just—”

 

“Sleeping together?” Spot suggested.

 

“Like we have been almost every night since January,” David said, “Exactly the same. Just being in contact while we sleep.” He didn’t want to force this on Spot at all. He was willing to go slow. He wasn’t a monster.

 

“I like sleeping with you,” Spot said. “Don’t look at me like that.”

 

“I’m not looking at you like anything.”

 

Spot walked towards the dresser between the beds and looked back at David. “Are you going to help me move this, or?”

 

The ended up putting the dresser at the end of the beds and shoved them together. David took the one further from the door because he knew what Spot was about. He put his sheets on while Spot put the sheets on his, working to get them in the crevice between the beds.

 

They didn’t drink for once in their lives, just stripped down to boxers and got into bed. The apartment had air conditioning by some fluke, but it was still hot and even though it would have been cooler to have some space, Spot nudged David to flip over so he could press against his back.

 

“The burgers were good,” David said.

 

“Yep,” Spot said.

 

“We’re good at playing house,” David said. “Tomorrow we’ll make French toast. I’ll teach you how.”

 

He waited for a snarky response. “I can’t wait” or “Gee fun, Davey.” But the room filled with the sound of Spot’s breath evening out, and within a few minutes, David was asleep too.

 

 


	3. First Days

When Spot woke up he was lying on his back and David’s arm was slung across his chest. The room was dark, with no windows letting light in. For a second he looked at the solid white ceiling and immediately tamped down the feelings of panic that tried to crawl their way to the front. Because he wasn’t panicked. He knew where he was. He was in Badger Building in the apartment he shared with David and he had slept through the night.

 

He groped for his phone. 4:07. Not bad. He’d woken up earlier without meaning to. He sat up and carefully headed to the living room, making sure not to wake David as he went.

 

He finished off a few papers for schools that ended in June. He knew that, at the latest, quarter system schools would be finishing up in the next week. Then the demand for papers would drop off to almost zero. He’d already told all but his two higher performing employees to expect to get few to no papers until Fall semester. He planned on taking most of what came in for himself, but he knew it still wouldn’t be much.

 

David had asked him if he wanted to get another job, but Spot blew him off. “I have a job.”

 

David nodded. “But like, a resume job. You’re an Economics major, it’s good to have experience.”

 

“I have experience,” Spot had said. “I own a business.”

 

“Just don’t be all upset that I’m gone all day,” David warned. “My internship is full time, and I have the library too.”

 

Spot didn’t plan on getting “all upset” about anything.

 

At 7:25 David came out of the bedroom, blinking blearily. He looked adorable.

 

“How long have you been up?” David asked.

 

“Not long.”

 

David nodded. “Okay. I’m going to take a shower then we’ll do French toast.”

 

“We don’t have to do that.”

 

“I promised you,” David said, “We’re going to do it.”

 

French toast was simple enough to make. Spot didn’t know anything about food, but he didn’t expect it to be as simple as dunking bread in egg and milk and cinnamon and then sticking it on a grill. To make David happy, he flipped a few before running off to get coffees from Tibby’s.

 

When he got back David smiled at him and reached out for his coffee. “The French toast is ready. We didn’t buy syrup, but we don’t need it.”

 

They totally needed syrup. Spot had to figure out a way to convince David to spend more money on food. He needed to eat—David thought _he_ had issues with food but he wasn’t the one who ran around eating margarine on bread for days on end.

 

“That’s fine,” Spot said. He took the plate of French toast that David offered and picked up a piece up and took a bite on the way to the couch. David went into his big kitchen box and took out a fork and knife.

 

“So,” David said, “Are you going to calm down now?”

 

Spot mustered offense. “What are you talking about?”

 

“You’ve been an obstinate jerk for the last two weeks, and I’m wondering if it’s over. Because I actually need you.”

 

Need him? “What the fuck do you need me for?”

 

David cut at his French toast. “I’m about to start my internship, and that’s going to be stressful. And we’re living together for the first time which is stressful in and of itself.”

 

“You think your internship is gonna be stressful?” Spot asked.

 

David gave him a crazy face. “It’s going to be damn stressful. Two years ago I was submitting my summer application for Roosevelt, and this summer I’m going to be reviewing them and planning the Fall Retreat. Like I have any idea what I’m doing. It’s nuts that Denton is trusting me—a freshman—with any of this.”

 

“It’s not nuts,” Spot said, “You’re like, obsessed with the Roosevelt scholarship. More than anyone. You know everything about it. You are the only person who should be doing it.”

 

David sighed and fell back against the couch. “This is what I mean, by the way. When you’re not insanely annoying, you can be very nice.”

 

“I’m not _nice,”_ Spot sneered. “’cording to you I’ve been insufferable for weeks.”

 

He didn’t really think he’d been that much worse than usual. He was just trying to get through the end of the semester and steadfastly ignore the possibility that Badger Building was going to fall through.

 

“I’ll come up with a different word then, asshole,” David said. “What are we doing today?”

 

Today they were going to Central Park for the ten hundredth time in their relationship. Spot picked it half the time it was his turn to pick because David loved it so much, and it was more fun to watch David’s face light up as they watched people pedal around on the swan boats than it was to do the crap Spot liked.

 

They went to the Alice and Wonderland structures and David waited patiently for kids to be out of shot—which took almost half an hour—before taking pictures. The park was crowded with early camps and tourist families and Spot had to resist the urge to lift wallets. He was stupid to stay out of Manhattan for most of his time out, he could have made bank in this park.

 

David finished taking his pictures and looked back at Spot. “Where next?” he asked. “There’s a new artist at The Jewish Museum, and that’s cheap for us since we’re students.”

 

“Sure,” Spot said, “Whatever you want.”

 

David gave him a look. “Okay, now you’re being _too nice._ It’s weird.”

 

“Okay, whatever you want, you fucking nerd,”

 

 

Their grades came in the next morning, a day earlier than scheduled. They found out when Swifty knocked on their door rapidly while yelling, “Grades are in, grades are in, grades are in!”

 

Spot threw on a shirt before answering the door. He and David were already in the habit of hanging around shirtless in their apartment. The air conditioner seemed to just blow in hot air. On the couch David put on a shirt and it took a minute of blinking for Spot to realize that David was wearing his shirt. Spot looked down and took in the orange debate shirt he was wearing, and the t-shirt with cut off sleeves that David was wearing.

 

Hand on the doorknob he said, “You look fucking cool.”

 

“So do you,” David said.

 

Spot hesitated. “Should we—”

 

“We’re roommates,” David said, “Roommates wear each other's clothes all the time.”

 

He wasn’t sure if that was true, but he had noticed that with Jack and David. So. He opened the door.

 

Swifty jumped back, like he’d been pressed against the door. Rather than his patent smile, his eyes flicked between Spot and David and he said once again, “Grades are up.”

 

David was on his feet and standing behind Spot in an instant. “Are you okay?” he asked.

 

“I made it,” Swifty said. “Barely. But I made it. Kid Blink did too.”

 

“Skittery?” David asked.

 

Swifty shrugged quickly. “I don’t know. Have you guys checked yours?”

 

Spot wanted to slam the door on Swifty and grab his laptop but he didn’t. He waited for David to handle it because David was better at being nice. And he did.

 

“Uh, Swifty,” David said, “We’re just gonna…” he trailed off and grabbed the door above Spot’s head.

 

His eyebrows shot up. “Totally!” he said, “Yeah. Don’t—yeah take some privacy. Just tell me?”

 

“We will,” David said, already edging the door closed. Swifty smiled quietly and walked away with a wave. David shut the door. He put a hand on Spot’s shoulder and turned him around.

 

“Did you want to check now or later?”

 

“Now,” Spot said, “I don’t want to spend another minute thinking I failed out.”

 

“If you got less than a 4.0 you wouldn’t be failing,” David said, “It’s ridiculous that you had to push yourself like this in the first place.”

 

Spot knew David wasn’t wrong, even though David would say that about anyone in in his position. The previous semester Spot had gotten at 2.98 GPA because he sucked at college, and the only way to get his GPA to a 3.5 as required by the scholarship was to take an overload of six classes and get perfect grades in all of them.

 

Some of his classes were easy enough. The classes that required only papers he flew threw because he wasn’t garbage and writing papers and never had been. He’d always been able to figure out what the teacher or professor wanted and could do research quickly. Intro to Psych was nothing new, he’d been writing papers for it since he was seventeen, and Latin, Comp and World Religions were similar breezes. He knew it was almost impressive, considering that he’d been in and out of school since kindergarten and the only schools he went to were straight garbage. David loved to gently point that out when Spot stayed up late in his and Race’s room, trying to figure out how to work PowerPoint.

 

And math. Business Math was a fucking nightmare. David was in his class, but they didn’t study together because Spot would get so frustrated he needed to pull out his hair or scream and someone and he didn’t want to scream and David. He ended up cheating a little bit, doing tutoring with Dutchy a lot more than he wanted to admit and ultimately went into his final knowing that he needed a 95% on it to get an A.

 

“I’m going to get a 4.0,” Spot said to David, who was practically strong-arming him into studying, “I wouldn’t leave you alone.”

 

The only class other class that was unclear was Creative Writing. It was a survey level course in the English department, and Spot’s professor didn’t turn back in any grades all semester. He said he believed in the merits of “effort” and “dedication” neither of which Spot had. He ran off stories that Racetrack made up when he was drunk. Lot’s of stories about gambling and racetracks. And other stuff that he jotted off while drunk during the poetry unit that he would never let David see and only turned in because the professor would fail him if he didn’t.

 

“Your hands are shaking,” David said when they sat next to each other on the couch.

 

Spot looked at David. “Yours too. You’re going to be fine, you know. You could get, what, 3.25 and still be fine?”

 

David nodded. “Still. It’s my entire life determined by a couple of numbers. I wish I could have gotten this struck down for this semester.”

 

Their internet took too long to load. Spot’s entire future was waiting for the internet to load. He’d resigned himself to the idea that he probably hadn’t done it, that it was impossible and he’d screwed himself over by messing around too much and deciding he didn’t give a shit last semester. Now he gave a megaton of shits because he needed to stay with David and not let down Boots and—

 

The intranet loaded. Spot clicked the buttons in the order he rehearsed and landed on his semester grades page.

 

Composition II: A

Latin II: A

Business Math: A

Introduction to Psychology: A

World Religions: A

Creative Writing: A

_Deans List Spring 2017_

 

Spot almost choked. The only thing that kept his vision from whiting out was feeling David’s hand on his arm.

 

“I got—oh my god,” David gasped out.

 

The weird panic in head dissipated and all his focus fell to David. “What? What happened?”

 

“I got a 3.26” David said.

 

It took Spot a minute to process that this wasn’t bad news, because David was pale and shaking and it seemed like a problem but it wasn’t.

 

“That’s good,” Spot said, “You needed a 3.25.”

 

David shook his head. He stood up and put his laptop on the couch, pulling away from Spot. He took a few steps to the other end of the room and put his hands through his hair.

 

“I got a 3.26,” David repeated.

 

“Good news,” Spot reiterated.

 

“Bad news,” David said. “I should have done better. I got a 3.75 last semester.”

 

Spot put his laptop down and stood up. “You spent all semester fighting a fucked up system and you _won._ Your grades aren’t the like—the fucking measure of you this semester.”

 

David pointed to his laptop and laughed his “aha” laugh. “They literally are and they literally said I’m below average.”

 

“3.26 is not below average,” Spot said.

 

David shook his head. “I’m supposed to be better than this. I’m supposed to, I’m supposed to get better than mostly B’s.”

 

“Why?” Spot asked. “Because you went to such a good high school? Because you knew how to write academic papers before this?”

 

“ _You_ knew how to write academic papers before this!”

 

“I’m a freak,” Spot said, “Bad example. The whole point of you fighting the Roosevelt board was that we ain’t adequately prepared for college, then we were expected to excel. So it’s bullshit that you’re putting this on yourself right now.”

 

David sighed. “I don’t want to let down my parents.”

 

“As you are so fond of saying, your parents love you. Not getting the world’s highest GPA doesn’t change that.” He knew that much from TV.

 

David nodded, then stopped. “Did you…?”

 

“I got a 4.0,” Spot said quietly.

 

“Oh,” David said, “oh! Oh my God. Oh my God I’m so relieved.”

 

“Yeah,” Spot said, “We’re good.”

 

“I don’t—is it ridiculous that I don’t feel great?” David asked, “Like I’m happy for you, so fucking happy, but I feel like I failed.”

 

“You didn’t fail, you bozo,” Spot said.

 

David sighed. “I’m the first person in my family to go to college,” he said.

 

“I know,” Spot said.

 

“I can’t let them down,” David insisted. “You don’t know what it’s like for me. My family calls me almost every day and they’re so proud of me. They think I’m this amazing big shot but I’m not. If I was I would have gotten at least a 3.75 like I did last semester. At least. I’m better at college now, there’s no excuse. Before it was like, yeah okay I had a big learning curve and I cheated some, but I still got good grades. What did I do this semester? I disrespected the people who made it possible for me to come here? I ran around with you? I smoked a cigarette? Oh my god. This is because I used drugs. I failed them.”

 

“Cigarettes aren’t drugs.”

 

“That’s what you took away from that?”

 

“Do you want me to call Swifty or Blink in here or something?” Spot asked.

 

David gave him a quizzical look. “No I want _you._ ”

 

Him? He was garbage. What would David want from him? “I can’t do anything.”

 

“You can listen,” David said, exasperated. “Just listen to me. God.”

 

“Fine, then fucking talk.”

 

David went back to the couch and picked up his laptop, looked at the screen and put it down.

 

“My GPA is still above a 3.5,” David said, “Barely. But it is.”

 

“See, you’re still a golden boy by Roosevelt standards,” Spot said. “Do your parents even care about your GPA? Do they even know what it is?”

 

David was silent, considering. “No,” he admitted, “I never told them.”

 

“Okay,” Spot said, “So you haven’t let down your amazing family.”

 

“I have,” David insisted. “They think I’m better than I am.”

 

“God, they must think you’re King David himself then,” Spot said, “If they think that you’re better than you are, they need to calm the fuck down. You’re fucking kick ass and what you did this semester is unaparalleled. Okay? I said it. Don’t make me say it again.”

 

David blinked. “Is this you being nice?”

 

“Jesus. Yes. Don’t make this about me. This is about you.”

 

David nodded. “I don’t think they’re even going to ask me about my GPA,” he said.

 

“They aren’t,” Spot said, “I’ve been in the room when you talk to your parents. All they care about is if you are eating, and sleeping and have friends. Which is all I care about too, by the fucking way.”

 

“It doesn’t bother you that I failed the semester?”

 

“God, stop making me be the voice of reason. You didn’t fail the semester. Jesus Christ.”

 

“Spot.”

 

“No. It doesn’t bother me at all. I don’t give a shit about that stuff.”

 

David finally sat down on the couch. “Could you just…?”

 

Spot sat down next to him. “What do you want me to do?”

 

David put his arms around Spot and dropped his head on his chest. He took a deep shuddering breath. After a moment of consideration, Spot tightened his arms around David’s shoulders.

 

* * *

 

 

The Roosevelt Scholarship office on campus was really just one office room in the Center for Diversity and Inclusion. David had spent some time there, meeting with Denton, but now he would be working there.

 

Denton emailed him the night before his first day asking him to bring his laptop and laptop charger, and to plan on Denton taking him out to lunch.

 

“Should I be insulted?” David asked the room. They were having Mush, Kid Blink and Swifty over for a dinner of pasta bake. Well, currently David was, Spot was taking a half hour long shower.

 

Mush took a long drink of his beer and put it down. He hiccupped. “Well Davey,” he said, “I mean. I don’t know. My boss at the caf buys me lunch all the time.”

 

“You worked at the _cafeteria,_ dude,” Blink said. “That don’t count none.”

 

“You shouldn’t be insulted, David,” Swifty said. “Denton is an established adult. And he’s probably using Roosevelt money to take you out. It’s totally normal.”

 

Still, as David was walking into the Center for Diversity and Inclusion, he was trying to figure out how to nicely pay for his own lunch, without disrespecting Denton’s generosity. The center was in the union which was deserted aside from some people who David did not think were students and a security officer. He turned left and found the Center locked and the lights turned off.

 

He checked his phone. He was fifteen minutes early, but Denton was the one who _told them_ it was appropriate to arrive fifteen minutes early on your first day. Surely he should have arrived fifteen minutes early too.

 

He waited ten minutes, reading over his text chat with Jack the night before before someone came clacking down the hall. He looked up. Down the hall was Dr. Larkson, dressed entirely in a bright purple suit with her hair up in elaborate curls.

 

“Oh David!” she said, “I’m sorry no one is here yet, honey.”

 

David had met Dr. Larkson only once before, but he figured that Denton had told her to expect him. She was the interim director of the center. Jack was in love with her, he spent as much time as he could at the center, under the guise of meeting with Denton. David had to admit to finding her attractive as well, she was beautiful after all.

 

David quickly looked over himself. He was wearing his best brown slacks and a button up blue shirt that he’d found a month ago at a thrift store. It was the best outfit he could manage to put together the night before, and he had no idea what he was wearing tomorrow.

 

Dr. Larkson smiled at him. “It’s good to see you, kid,” she said, “Denton will be here in a jiff. He’s probably getting Starbucks for us all. Come, I’ll let you in.”

 

David watched Dr. Larkson use a key and a black fob—how did he not know what they were before now?—to open the Center door. She flipped on the lights.

 

The Center had a lounge space in the center of it with a low front desk that a student usually worked at. There were two grey couches that students often slept on, and two computers in the corner with a printer. There was a mini fridge and a counter that was covered in chips and pretzel bags. On one side was Dr. Larkson’s office with wide windows that looked into the lounge and David could see a couch inside, and on the other side of the lounge were two offices. One was Denton’s and one was supposed to be the Assistant Director’s, but David knew the position had been vacant since he’d arrived on campus.

 

“Why don’t you take a seat,” Dr. Larskon said, “Denton will be here in a jiff.”

 

David sat on the couch, putting his backpack on his lap. “Thanks, Dr. Larskon,” he said.

 

“Oh come now, David,” she said, “You can call me Medda.”

 

Denton had told them that if an adult asked them to call them by their first name, the respectful thing was to respect their wishes. Even if it was uncomfortable.

 

“Medda,” David replied, “Thank you.”

 

He sat with his laptop on his lap until Denton breezed in with a four drink carrier of Starbucks in hand. He smiled at David and held out one of the trenta drink.

 

“Brewed coffee, with room for cream,” Denton said. “I didn’t know how you take it, but we have cream and sugar here.” David started to reply, but Denton walked into Medda’s office and handed her one of the coffees. He came back out and pointed to the mini fridge.

 

“Cream is in there,” he said.

 

“I take it black,” David said.

 

“Good man,” Denton said. “Come into my office, we’ll get started.”

 

David picked up his backpack and followed Denton into his office. It was smaller than Medda’s and windowless, with art all over the walls and awards in a back corner. Denton’s desk faced a wall, which meant that there was no separation between his spinny chair and the two armchairs that students sat in.

 

Denton gestured to the armchairs and David took a seat.

 

“Are you nervous?” Denton asked.

 

“A little,” David said honestly.

 

“I’m a little nervous too,” Denton said, “You’re my first intern. I haven’t supervised a student before.”

 

“You supervise all of us, basically,” David said.

 

Denton took a drink of his coffee. “That’s to keep you on track, different than professional supervision. I was thinking to start with, you and I could come up with some goals for your internship. Tasks, but also things you want to accomplish.”

 

“Oh,” David said, “I don’t know. I thought like, I would be helping you review applications and get ready for fall retreat? That’s what you said when you hired me.”

 

“Of course, but there an internship is more than that. There are things that you will accomplish while you’re here, ways you’ll make a difference that are broader than simple tasks.”

 

The way Denton was talking, it was like David should have figured out all that already. Like he wasn’t the first person he knew to have an internship. “Can I think about it?” David asked.

 

“Of course,” Denton said, “That’s what today, even this first week is for. No rush.”

 

They spent some time getting Daivd on the Google Drive that housed all the Roosevelt applications, student records, grades, and in total more information that David thought Denton kept on them. Denton must have picked up on his surprise.

 

“I expect that you won’t try to access any information about your peers,” Denton said. “You are free to read your own file, if you like, just let me know if you do.”

 

David was torn between desperate curiosity and revulsion at the idea of reading out records that Denton and the board kept on him. He could use this against the board, somehow, if he needed to again, was his first thought. Bias, or something. But at the same time, he was past fighting the scholarship program. He was part of it now. He had to be a professional.

 

By the time they were done onboarding David, Denton decided it was time for lunch. He didn’t tell David where they were going ahead of time, which prevented him from looking it up on his phone. He just followed Denton as he walked west until they reached the 6, which they took up to Grand Central 42nd street station.

 

“You’re not taking me out of the state, are you?” David asked.

 

Denton laughed. “No. I want to take you to one of my favorite spot. Get the summer started right.”

 

Denton’s favorite spot was a restaurant nestled under the Pershing Square bridge. The hostess knew him and ushered him to a table in the back. David could tell from the kind of people eating lunch there on a Monday that this was a fancy place, but it was when he opened the menu that he broke into a cold sweat.

 

“I’m paying for lunch,” Denton reminded him.

 

A hamburger was twenty dollars.

 

David had twenty dollars.

 

But he needed it.

 

“I don’t take charity from anybody,” David said.

 

“I understand,” Denton said.

 

“No you don’t,” David said, exhausted.

 

Denton sat back. “David if you would like to, we can go somewhere else, but it is normal for a supervisor to pay for an employees meal, especially on the first day.”

 

Denton didn’t understand any of this. That was the problem. Denton was practically born knowing everything about the world that the rest of them were thrust into, blinking like fools while Denton skated around telling them how to act, how to talk, how to walk. He was sure that Denton was born for this life, while the rest of them were just trying desperately to fit in for a few years.

 

“It’s normal?” David asked.

 

“It’s normal.”

 

“I’d be rude to turn you down?”

 

“You wouldn’t be overly rude, I would not be offended. But at this point, we are already at the restaurant and we may as well order.”

 

David nodded. He ordered an eleven dollar soup while Denton ordered a thirty dollar steak and potato dish.

 

“I know,” Denton said, “An indulgence, especially for a typical Monday. But it’s my favorite thing on the menu.”

 

“Have you ever been to Tibby’s?” David asked, “That’s where we go.”

 

“Of course,” Denton said, “I understand it’s a Roosevelter favorite.”

 

“It’s cheap,” David said.

 

“Maybe we’ll go there later this week.”

 

That afternoon Denton had David fill out a first tier Roosevelt application on his own.

 

“I already did this?” David said. “Two years ago.”

 

Denton ignored him as he emailed him the link to the new application. David was standing in his doorway. Denton had him set up in the lounge space at an open space on the computer desk. Every once in a while Medda would walk in and out, sometimes ushering people into her office.

 

Done emailing, Denton turned around. “I remember,” Denton said, “I remember your application very clearly. I want you to try again, experience applying from a new point of view.”

 

“But I’m not in high school.”

 

“Apply as though you were applying to join the program in your sophomore year,” Denton said. “You are going to be reading hundreds of essays with this prompt, I want you to remember what it’s like to go through this process.”

 

It seemed stupid.

 

David sat down at his computer. He opened the link to the application. He remembered the preliminary application prompt when he had finished his junior year of high school and was just starting to toy with the idea that he might go to college. The prompt that year had been all that he thought about for weeks. He spent hours at the public library writing and rewriting drafts, terrified that he’d forget to save it to his flashdrive.

 

The prompt this year was just as difficult as two years ago.

 

He started an outline but didn’t get anything done by the time Denton told him to go home. An hour early.

 

David looked at the paltry work he’d gotten done. “I’m supposed to be here until five.”

 

“Look,” Denton said, “I’m leaving, that means your leaving. I’m not leaving you here by yourself. Go enjoy your summer, meet up with Spot.”

 

“Spot?” David asked. He wasn’t worried, really, just needed to establish if someone else knew.

 

“Your roommate,” Denton said easily, “Your housing application went through me, remember?”

 

“Oh right,” David said, “Yeah, he’ll be excited I’m getting off early.”

 

Spot was home when he walked in, sitting on the carpet with wet hair and a towel around his neck in front of his laptop with a pile of twizzlers in his lap.

 

“Busy day?” David asked.

 

Spot didn’t look up. “You’re early,” he said.

 

“Denton told me to go,” David said, defending himself.

 

“I’m glad,” Spot said, eyes still on his laptop and fingers racing over the keys. David thought of how his document for the 2018 application still had only 300 words in it. He was sure Spot could write it in an hour.

 

“You’re working on a paper?”

 

“Yep,” Spot said.

 

“My day was weird,” David said, “He wants me to apply for the Roosevelt program again.”

 

“You already did that.”

 

“Hence, again.”

 

He looked up at David, “Wanna quit standing over me?”

 

“Wanna quit working on that paper and come hang out with me?”

 

Spot closed his laptop and stood up laboriously. “Fine,” he said, “What do you want to do?” He stepped up to David and threaded his hands in his hair. “This?”

 

“This is good. And making dinner, when we’re done with this.”

 

“French toast?” Spot asked, as close to hopeful as he got.

 

“Whatever you want, you fucking nerd.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your comments give me life.


	4. What's Next?

 

Spot Conlon had a bank account.

 

It was off-brand, and David told him so when he let him know they had to go make a withdrawal. But he had one.

 

The “transition specialist” at the group home set it up for him. She got him a social security card too, and made him practice filling out W4s in exchange for Dr. Pepper and a bag of chips.

 

“It’s wrong to bribe someone who has struggled with food security with food,” Spot had informed her.

 

She blinked at him. “I think I would know if it’s wrong, wouldn’t I?”

 

“Have you read the ‘Interventions with At-Risk Youth in Micro Urban Areas by Dr. Wallace Gardener and Dr. Tiller Myer? It advises using intrinsic motivation and avoiding bribes related to basic needs. If you keep workin’ with us losers, you should probably do some research.”

 

Spot hadn’t said more than five words at a time to her before that.

 

“Don’t make things up,” she admonished.

 

Spot thought about telling David about her as they walked to his bank to withdraw some cash, but decided against it. There was no point in letting David know that he was once considered so incompetent that someone was employed to teach him how to use the subway.

 

David walked quickly beside him. After the bank, they were taking the 6 then the 7 to Bryant Park for the public viewing of Monsters Inc. Spot didn’t want to go, until David confessed he hadn’t seen it and Spot fucking lost it for a second because who in the world had never seen _Monsters Inc._

“Why do we have to go to the bank?” David asked.

 

“I need cash.”

 

“Don’t you have a debit card?”

 

“Food trucks,” Spot answered.

 

“They take credit cards,” David said.

 

Spot made an aggravated sound. “David, do you want me to buy you elote?”

 

“I don’t want you to buy me anything,” David said.

 

“Then let me pick up some money,” Spot continued as though David hadn’t said anything. “Fuck.”

 

David threw up his hands as they turned into Spot’s bank vestibule. “Just don’t be upset if we miss the beginning.”

 

“Thanks to _you,_ we’re getting there an hour early.”

 

“There’s going to be crowds! We need to get a good spot.”

 

“You already have a good Spot,” he said.

 

David laughed. “Was that a joke? From you? Oh my god. Oh my god look at you go. I would put this in my scrapbook if I had a scrapbook.”

 

Spot convinced David that they had to stop at a bodega and get popcorn and candy. It was difficult, obviously, because David made things difficult when it came to buying food and finally Spot stopped him in the candy aisle and said, “Go outside. I will meet you there in five minutes.”

 

“But—”

 

“Go.”

 

David gave him a firm look. “No,” he said.

 

“Fine, then watch me buy this shit and don’t say a word.”

 

David followed him up to the counter. “Did you notice that the generic—“

 

“Seriously, Davey, not a word.”

 

The park was packed. Mostly with families, which Spot could have seen coming. David went all adventurer on their asses and led them to a spot halfway up the lawn, sandwiched between a family with approximately a zillion kids and an old couple. Everyone else had blankets and coolers, like idiots who were trying to move into the park. Spot dropped to sit cross-legged on the grass, and David carefully sat down next to him.

 

“You couldn’t have picked a spot without a million kids?” he asked, not taking care to quiet his voice.

 

“You’re the one who wanted to see a kids movie,” David said.

 

“Because _you’re_ the one who’s never fucking seen it.”

 

The mom in the family cut them a glance and Spot gave her a cold look. They weren’t about to rob or indoctrinate her kids. David was wearing his umpteenth debate shirt and Spot had taken care not to look like he was about to murder someone, so she really had no fucking basis to be looking at them like that.

 

“Grew up with no TV, remember?” David said, “We didn’t go to theaters either.”

 

“Neither the fuck did I, but I found a way around that,” Spot said, “You sneak in, or you make friends with a rich kid and watch TV at their place.”

 

“Or,” David said, “You wait sixteen years and you see it in a park.”

 

The movie was exactly as good as Spot remembered it being. Sully was hilarious, and even he had to admit that they’d made Boo cuter than real kids were. Even better was David laughing along with the crowd, clapping at some points and gasping at others. Spot struggled not to spend the whole movie watching David.

 

David noticed. At one point he leaned over and said in a low, flirtatious voice, “Am I better than the movie?”

 

Spot looked around. No one had heard them, just like no one noticed when they sometimes held hands on the street. But still. Spot shook his head and resolutely watched the screen for the remainder of the movie.

 

If David noticed he acted like he didn’t. He chattered the entire subway ride back to Badger Building, about the economics of Scream City and the probable salary of the workers in the movie and the anthropological metaphors resonant in the film. He talked with his hands, gesturing as though he was on the floor for a debate tournament, hitting Spot in the chest more than once in the now relatively open space of the subway.

 

“So you liked that?” Spot asked on their elevator ride up to the apartment when David finally paused for breath.

 

“Oh, I loved that,” David said. “I loved that. Thank you for telling me about it.”

 

Spot nodded. “I guess this was a good date?”

 

“The best,” David said, “Would have been better if—”

 

The elevator doors opened to reveal Skittery, wearing a grey hoodie with a cigarette behind his ear and one unlit between his lips. He glowered and shoved past them into the elevator.

 

David started to walk out, but turned back and held the elevator open with his arm. “Skittery,” he said, “I know about everyone except you. Did you make it?”

 

“Make what?” Skittery asked, taking the cigarette out of his mouth.

 

“Your grades. For the scholarship.”

 

Sktitery jabbed the down button. “None of your fucking business. I don’t know why you think you’re in charge of this shit, just because you’re Denton’s lackey. You don’t have the right to know nothing about me.”

 

David’s eyes were wide. He stepped back and let the elevator close.

 

“Say all you want about me,” Spot joked, “But I’m far more pleasant than that asshole.”

 

Skittery was a fucking asshole. Spot knew he wasn’t _nice_ but he did decent things sometimes when he was in the mood. Skittery was just a pain in the ass.

 

There was a time, at the beginning of the year, when Spot misestimated Skittery to be his biggest threat. He started with the assumption that anyone could have been a threat, but Skittery seemed the most obvious. He smoked in the halls and glared at anyone who coughed in his direction and his shares at the fall retreat was harsh and confrontational. Spot did everyone the service of not talking, but Skittery manned the floor with his fucking angst.

 

Those kinds of guys. The guys who felt sorry for themselves. They were the ones who thought they were owed something, and that made them fucking dangerous.

 

But the months went by without Skittery doing anything except complain and bring up the noise policy incessantly. So Skittery remained only a potential threat.

 

“Do you think he didn’t make it?” David asked, sounding genuinely concerned.

 

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Spot said, “Come on. We forgot to drink. Let’s go get drunk.”

 

David unlocked the door to the apartment and shook his head. “We’re already up so late. And I have finish my 2018 Roosevelt application for Denton and turn it in first thing tomorrow.”

 

“Let me write if for you. I can write drunk as good as sober.”

 

David laughed his sarcastic “aha!” laugh and crashed on the couch, pulling his laptop onto his lap.

 

“Okay date over,” David said, “Go take one of your famous hour long showers.”

 

“I’ll jerk off thinking of you,” Spot promised before he realized what he said.

 

David looked at him with wide eyes. “Okay,” he said.

 

They’d never—

 

They were probably the only 18 and 19 year old guys who never talked about sex.

 

But they’d never made that kind of joke before.

 

“Sorry,” Spot muttered.

 

“That was fine,” David said to his laptop. “Not like I haven’t done it before.”

 

Spot had grabbed his towel and was closing the bathroom door when he heard, “Hope that’s not why you shower three times a day.”

 

Spot ignored the fuck out of that.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The Theodore Roosevelt Scholarship Program at Pulitzer University

2018 Application

 

The Roosevelt Scholarship is awarded to extraordinary young men who have experienced significant disruption in their educational experiences.

 

Please note this is a first-round application. If your application is selected you will be asked to provide additional materials

 

 

 **Name:** David Jacobs

 **Graduating Semester and Year:** May 2016 (high school)/May 2020 (undergraduate studies)

 **Most Recent High School Attended:** Elias McMahon High School, Chicago IL

 **Will you be the first person in your immediate family to go to college?:** Yes X No __

**List any academic honors, awards, membership activities while in high school:**

Moriah Williams Magnet School: Debate Team

  * 3rd in State Public Forum Debate
  * 1st Regionals Public Forum Debate
  * 1st in Regionals Franklin Douglas Debate
  * 4th in Illinois State Franklin Douglas Debate finals
  * 18th in Nationals Franklin Douglas Debate finals
  * “Secret Weapon” Award



Elias McMahon High School: Debate Team

  * 1st in Regionals Franklin Douglas Debate
  * 2nd in Illinois State Franklin Douglas Debate finals
  * 5th in Nationals Franklin Douglas Debate finals



**List any outside commitments, work experience (including hours worked per week), or family obligations**

High school: Loran's Grocer 20-35 hours a week

College: Putlizer University Library 10-20 hours a week

**List your hobbies, outside interests, extracurricular activities, and volunteer activities:**

Working at the Pulitzer University Library, dismantling unjust scholarship policies, volunteering at the campus Art Gallery, researching historical labor unions

 

**Briefly describe the disruptions you have experienced in your high school education:**

 

In high school, I was working up to 35 hours a week while still in school full time.

 

In college, my education has been disrupted in less obvious ways. When there is a crisis at home, my attention is on my family who is half a country away and I am unable to visit. I find that my incomplete high school education is not fully made up for by my innate intelligence, and I struggle with forming essays and using new technology that my peers seem to intuitively understand.

 

**Essay Question: 1-250 words**

**If you could change one thing about your life, what would it be and why?**

 

            There was one thing that all of my college-bound peers in high school had in common: They were all in a hurry to get far away from Chicago. UCLA, University of Michigan, even Cape Town. They were done with Chicago, or maybe just their families. In any case, there weren’t afraid to be away from home.

            I was.

And while the fear has abated, my longing for home has not. Every day I speak to my family and watch as their lives evolve and shift around my absence. I know that my siblings have turned my bed into a space for storage, which is badly needed. I am glad they have things that need storing. I am glad my sister has been promoted to Assistant Manager at Walgreens, and that my parents have been able to used what I sent to sign my brother up for an athletic camp. Not all change is harmful. Many of the things reported to me between crises are very positive and encouraging.

Still, I wish I was there. Or they were here. If I had the power, I would create an amalgamation of New York City and Chicago and keep all of the best components of each in one place. Many people have this, have everything they love and care about in one place. In college, I’ve learned these people exist, and I would like to be one of them. But I know it will not happen.

 

 

It wasn’t great. It wasn’t even good. It wouldn’t get David to the next round of any scholarship in the world. But he was already in Pulitzer, and after two days of spinning his wheels, Denton had said, “I’m not evaluating you, this is a learning experience for you. I don’t care if you turn in the word ‘kerfuffle’ written 250 times as long as that’s you trying to experience the application again.”

 

It worked. David went through the same doubt and anxiety that he had the last time he wrote the preliminary application, and stayed up late the past three days working on it. Spot wasn’t helpful at all.

 

“Just let me write it,” he kept offering, “I know exactly how to write you. Wistful. Short sentences. Emphasis. It’s not hard to imitate.”

 

David flipped him off and continued to stare at his screen.

 

He finally got it done after a drawn-out conversation with Sarah over Messanger. She had nothing significant to report, but he still talked to her for three hours after Spot went to bed. It made him almost sick with how much he wished he was home. He was two months away from living away from his family for an entire year, and he let his crappy essay flow out of him and emailed it to Denton before he lost his nerve.

 

Spot woke up when he got into bed and disappeared into the living room the entire time he slept. David showed up to the office with three hours of sleep. He had no quibbles about taking the free trenta coffee that Denton offered him.

 

“I read your application,” Denton said first off.

 

“When?” David couldn’t help but ask. “I sent it at three in the morning.”

 

Denton laughed. “I know. You must be tired. You’re only supposed to work from nine to five, you know.” David shrugged. “I wake up at five thirty and read and respond to all my emails. Well, I queue them, it wouldn’t be helpful to me for people to know I reply to emails at that hour. But it’s the only way I get anything done during the day. Come into my office, let’s talk about it.”

 

With a bad feeling in his stomach, David followed Denton into his office and sat down on one of the armchairs. Denton sighed and turned around towards his computer, and David silently watched as he printed his application, and handed David one copy.

 

“Put this in your professional development binder,” Denton instructed, “How was writing this?”

 

David left out most things but explained how it reminded him of the first time he wrote it. Denton just nodded along, gesturing for him to continue. Finally, he got to it.

 

“In this, you mentioned that you send money home,” Denton said, a question in his voice.

 

“Is that not allowed?” David asked, “You said we could use the money for anything legal.”

 

“You can,” Denton said, “I just want to make sure you have enough to take care of yourself.”

 

David sat forward in his seat. “Denton, you know I appreciate everything you have done for me. Including your ‘employability’ lessons where you told me that a supervisor isn’t entitled to any personal information about me. So, respectfully, I have to say that that is none of your business.”

 

Denton smiled, “Using my own syllabus against me? Well. I suppose you know you can come to me if you need help, and I hope that counts for something.”

 

“I thought you knew,” David said, “But whate—okay. I’ll note that. Can I get back to work?”

 

Denton nodded. “Some applications are coming in, I was thinking we would each read the first couple dozen or so, then we would start splitting the reading.”

 

“How many applications come in each year?” David asked. He’d wanted to know for over two years.

 

“Just over a thousand,” Denton said, “But that’s just for the preliminary round.”

 

Over a _thousand._ That meant that the ten who were chosen each year were the top 1%.

 

Denton must have been high when he let David in.

 

“Please, keep that number to yourself,” Denton said, “The board guards that information jealously, and I also do not think it would benefit your friends.”

 

David didn’t know how Spot would react that information. Would he have the same sinking, spinning feeling that David was having right now?

 

“Can I just keep cleaning up the Google drive, and we can do that in the afternoon?”

 

He began to speak, but then Denton gave him an evaluative look. “Sure David,” he said, “Let’s meet up at noon and get lunch at Tibby’s.”

 

David got up and started to leave the office before he turned back. “Denton? I know everyone in our year got the GPA, but Skittery hasn’t told me. Could you—”

 

Denton held up a hand. “David, I can’t tell you—“

 

Fuck.

 

“Yeah,” David said, “Yeah okay.”

 

* * *

 

 

To: sconlon@pulitzer.edu   
From: ckloppman@pulitzer.edu  
Subject: CW 100 Final

 

Hello Spot

 

I hope that the summer is treating you well! It is, of course, Professor Kloppman, your Creative Writing professor. I am reaching out for the simple reason that I was hoping you would come to my office sometime this summer to discuss your work. I heard through the wind that you are on campus, and may be available for some side work? Whether this is the case or not, I would very much like to see you to have a tête-à-tête about the work you have done.

 

All the best

Kloppman

 

 

 

Spot ran out of papers to write.

 

It was bound to happen eventually.

 

There were only so many people in summer school, and only so many of them who had papers due, and only so many of them who came to Quick Papers.

 

Still.

 

It fucking sucked.

 

Other summers he’d always been in the business of having actual problems. Dodging assholes, getting food, finding a way to get through the goddamn day without getting arrested or kicked out of wherever the great state of New York decided to put him.

 

This was a fucking cakewalk compared to that shit.

 

Which was probably why he was so fucking bored.

 

He took a shower and texted Boots, who directed him to text Aunt Elane who texted back immediately that “Isaiah” had tutoring and would not be available until tomorrow.

 

She then called him.

 

“Do you have a job?” she demanded.

 

“No,” Spot said. Like hell he was telling Aunt Elane about Quick Papers.

 

She hummed. “And how do you support yourself?”

 

“The scholarship gives me money,” he said.

 

“During the summer?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“And what do you do with yourself?”

 

“I _try_ to hang out with Boots,” he said.

 

“I will not have Boots be the only way you pass your time,” she said, “You will be very bored if that is the case, as Boots is very busy and cannot spend all him time with you.”

 

“Did you call just to say that?” Spot asks, “Because that’s pretty damn rude.”

 

“I’m not your mother,” Aunt Elane said.

 

“Believe me, I know.”

 

“If I was your mother, you would have a job this summer.”

 

It was fucking hilarious to compare Aunt Elane to his mother, even for a second.

 

“You’re not going to ban me from hanging out with Boots until I get a job, are you?” Spot asked.

 

Aunt Elane paused. “No,” she said, “There are no books about this, you know.”

 

“About what?”

 

“About what to do with the boy who took care of your son on the streets.”

 

“I’m sorry I’m so unprecedented,” Spot said. “He told me his therapist told you it was important to keep me in his life. So there. Can I _please_ hang out with Boots tomorrow?”

 

“You may come over at three. Will anyone be coming with you?”

 

“He works,” Spot said.

 

“I see.”

 

With no Boots and no David, Spot resigned himself to day drinking and listening to records. He’d set up his record player in the living room. Partly because there was no space in the bedroom for it. He opened a beer and set up listening to a Left Hand Door album. He was only halfway through and not nearly drunk enough when a knock came on the door.

 

He thought about ignoring it, but it could be David and he wouldn’t want to ignore that like some dick. So with a groan, he got up and looked through the peephole in the door.

 

It was Kid Blink.

 

Not the worst person to have on the other side of your door.

 

Spot yelled, “What?” hoping his voice carried over the record.

 

“It’s Blink,” he said, unnecessarily.

 

“What do you want?”

 

Spot could see Blink shift through the peephole. “Listen, would you just let me in?”

 

Because he was so much nicer these days, Spot opened the door. Kid Blink took that as an invitation and walked on in, collapsing on their sofa. He even reached for Spot’s beer before Spot barked out, “hey!” and shut the door behind him.

 

Blink pulled back. “Sorry,” he said, “you got one for me?”

 

“You got an explanation for why you’re in my apartment?”

 

Blink waved vaguely at the door. “Skittery’s banging stuff around. He just got off the phone with his grandpa and he ain’t been in a worse mood ever I’ve seen him. Swifty ain’t home. Just leaves you.”

 

“Or literally anywhere else in the world.”

 

Blink smirked. “C’mon Spot. You ain’t fooling me with this act. We all know you love me, you just can’t admit to it because you got this per-son-a goin’ and it would ruin it.”

 

Spot rolled his eyes. “You looking for David?”

 

“Looking for whoever,” Blink said, “Just needed to get out of there. Skittery’s smoking up a storm, it’s making eyes water.”

 

Spot gave him a look.

 

“Ha! A joke about my disability! Amazing!”

 

“It weren’t a joke, I didn’t say anything.”

 

Blink got up and went for their fridge. “But I saw it Spot, with my own _eye_. Be a pal man, share your beer and let me crash here for a minute.”

 

There wasn’t an answer that wouldn’t disappoint David except to let Blink sit on his couch and drink his fucking beer. Spot gave him one of the warm ones from the counter, but Blink didn’t comment on it.

 

Spot didn’t want to sit on the couch next to Kid Blink—he wasn’t David, or Racetrack or Boots or anything—so he took his laptop off the couch and brought it over to the bar that led into the kitchen and sat on one of the uncomfortable bar stools.

 

Blink didn’t comment on it. “You ain’t got a TV?”

 

“Do you see a TV?”

 

“Nah. I’m just saying. At least Skittery got us a TV. A little one the size of a shoebox but still. What do you do all day?”

 

“None of your business is what,” Spot said.

 

Blink took a pull of his beer. “You know we’re friends, right?”

 

Spot blinked. He did not fucking know this. He never agreed. He wasn’t exactly familiar with the process of becoming friends with someone, but he was pretty sure you had to agree to be friends with them in the first place.

 

“Yep,” Blink continued as though Spot had replied, “We’ve been friends since you delivered me back to my room after I struck out with Desdemona Sinclair. It was chivalrous of you really. You were drunker than me, which may be why you don’t remember the moment we became friends.”

 

“I don’t,” Spot said.

 

“Well we are,” Blink said, “That means we spend some quality damn time together.”

 

The way the bar faced the kitchen, Spot’s back was to Blink and he had to twist his body to see him. He turned back towards his laptop, hands hovering over the keys, but he had nothing to do no it because he had no more papers and as Aunt Elane had so subtly pointed out, his life was meaningless without a task.

 

“What do friends do together?” Spot asked, with just the right amount of derision in his voice for Blink to know it wasn’t an _actual question._

 

“Ah,” Blink said, “Well. It depends on the friends. You and me, what we got in common is that we like some people, but we really don’t like the rest of them.”

 

“We got that in common?” Spot asked.

 

“We got that in common,” Blink confirmed. “So we can trash talk the people we don’t like.”

 

Spot turned around. “Who specifically?”

 

Blink grinned. “Oh Spot, this is what true friendship is built on.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

David came home from his internship exhausted.

 

Denton spent the entire afternoon going over the point system that dictated which Roosevelt application made it to the second round. Each answer—even the location of a applicant’s high school—had a point value and only the top 10% made it to the second round.

 

“How many points did mine have?” David asked.

 

Denton sighed. “It was one of a thousand at that point, so I honestly don’t remember. At least 45, to have made it to the final round.”

 

They went over five applications together, and David disagreed with Denton on the point’s awarded to four of them. Denton acted excited when he did, said, “Yes, yes, this is why I brought you on.”

 

“What if I disagree with you on all of them?” David asked.

 

So far he was in favor of less theatrical candidates than Denton, except one that was mired with spelling errors, but the content’s of whom’s essay—entirely on why the student would change it so there were no late fees on library books—moved David and underwhelmed Denton.

 

“Then I will be even more glad that I brought you on than I thought I was,” Denton said.

 

Still.

 

It was tiring.

 

The hallway outside their apartment was so humid the walls looked wet. Through their apartment door, David was surprised to hear voices. He didn’t think Aunt Elane had decided to allow Boots to come to their apartment, but she must have. He unlocked the door and opened it, but was surprised to find Blink and Spot sitting on their couch, knee to knee, laughing together.

 

The main thing he felt was confusion.

 

Spot looked over and smiled at him. David took the moment to note the bevy of empty beers on the coffee table. Which helped explain things.

 

“Hey-o,” David said.

 

“Hey-o!” Blink said back. “Sorry I stole your roommate for an afternoon.” Spot shoved Blink in the shoulder but with none of his normal vehemence. It was almost

 

Affectionate?

 

“Sorry Davey, I was just in the middle of the story,” Blink said then turned back to Spot, “So I says to him, I says ‘It don’t escape my notice that this is a damn nice restaurant, and you wouldn’t want me making a scene in here, now would you?’”

 

“What did he say?” Spot encouraged.

 

“He gave me the damn table!” Blink crowed, “Now that’s what I call quality service!”

 

David stood, still in the doorway, with his backpack on in the blue shirt he’d worn for the third time since the internship started, and watched as Spot laughed uproariously.

 

What the hell had happened since he left at eight thirty that morning?

 

Blink checked his bare wrist. “I better get going. Mush is expecting me at Tibby’s any minute. “Do you fellas want to come?”

 

David looked at Spot who was already looking at him with a neutral look in his face. Which was wildly different than his usual flat out rejection at hanging out with anyone except Racetrack. “Uh,” David said, “Yeah? We’ll come.”

 

Spot didn’t nod, but he looked away and he stood up and he turned off his record player, which was playing more of his egregious punk music. “David has to change,” he said.

 

“I don’t have to.”

 

“You always change when you get home from work,” Spot said, “It’s cool we’ll meet you there.”

 

Blink jumped up and left. David did change—he still wasn’t comfortable with the seams on his nice shirts and the feeling of the collars against his skin. Spot followed him to the door of the bedroom and watched him do it.

 

“Creep much?’ David joked.

 

“Good day?” Spot asked.

 

Denton had told him to keep what he learned today to himself. How his and Spot and Jack and the other guys lives were down to points and a 1% chance. Still, he couldn’t help but say, “It sometimes scares me how unlikely it is that we’d be here.”

 

Spot scratched his chin. “You don’t have to tell me.”

 

David pulled his favorite shirt on—one of Lincoln climbing through the window of Old Main in Galesburg—and looked at Spot. “You’re friends with Blink now?”

 

Spot shrugged. “Race is gone. I need something to do when you’re not around.”

 

“Sounds like you’re admitting you’re human,” David observed.

 

“Shut up,” Spot said.

 

“Blink has an internship too, you know,” David said, “I know he doesn’t work Fridays, but like, the other days. He won’t be here either.”

 

Spot cracked his neck. “I don’t need to be around people twenty-four seven.”

 

David kept to himself that he had observed the opposite to be true.

 

“There have to be other internships—”

 

“Let’s go,” Spot said, “Before I change my mind. You know I can only be around Mush for so long, so start thinking about what we’re doing after.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did I do to deserve you? Your comments are all I need


	5. Twenty Dollars

 

They ended up spending four hours at Tibby’s, which was three and a half hours longer than David expected. David had thirty-six dollars left in his bank account, so he ordered toast and butter and Spot ordered a platter of fries that he shoved at David.

 

When David finally gave in and ate some of the cold fries, Blink said, “Ohhh, so when _Spot_ buys the food you’ll eat it.”

 

Spot glared at Blink, but David just said, “Yes, that’s how it works,” and ate two more cold fries.

 

Texts from Jack started pouring in in the fourth hour, at ten o’clock just as David was starting to want to go home. David ignored them at first, focused on listening to Mush’s story about his sister’s rhythmic gymnastics final, but the buzzing in his pocket became insistent and constant, so he took out of his phone.

 

_7 texts from Jack Kelly_

 

_hey davey!_

_davey@!_

_Davey come on_

_Dude answer your damn phone_

_Forget it_

_Dude DUDE cOME ON_

_Please facetime with me_

David put away his phone and cleared his throat. “Um, listen, I’m going to head back to Badger Building.”

 

Spot looked up from his conversation with Blink. “Now?” he asked.

 

“Now,” David confirmed. “You can stay.”

 

He pushed his plate back and stood up. “I’m done, let’s go.”

 

He showed the texts to Spot on the ride up in the elevator. It was after he handed the phone to Spot that it occurred to him that it may have been a violation of Jack’s privacy, but there wasn’t much to them.

 

“He’s on drugs,” Spot said.

 

“He’s not.”

 

“Then he’s drunk.” He handed the phone back to David. “I don’t want to talk to him when you FaceTime with him.”

 

“You’re done talking to people?” David guessed. He used the three keys needed to unlock the three deadbolts on their door.

 

“Yep,” Spot said, “Congratulate me for not being a fucking dick to Mush.”

 

“Not Blink?” David teased, “That’s not an accomplishment anymore?”

 

“No,” Spot said, then disappeared into their room.

 

Which meant David was talking to Jack in the living room. He got comfortable on the couch and texted Jack.

 

_Are you ready?_

Almost the moment he hit send, the notification that Jack was FaceTiming him came through. David answered the call.

 

“Hey Davey!” Jack yelled. He was moving. The camera frame jostled and Jack was a blur.

 

“Jack, could you sit down?”

 

“Good to see you too, David, good to see you too.” Jack didn’t sit down, if anything the movement in the camera became more severe and dropped to Jack’s feet.

 

“Where are you?”

 

“I’m walking, Davey! Just walking.”

 

“Could you please be sitting so I can see you?”

 

Jack made an aggravated sound. “Hold on!” he yelled.

 

There was more shuffling and movement and David sat quietly for what must have been three minutes before the camera moved one last time before Jack’s face came into steady view.

 

He looked tired.

 

“There, look what I did for you, my friend. I found a park bench to sit on. Just for you.”

 

“We could have just done a phone call,” David belatedly realized, “Then you could have kept walking. Where are you going?”

 

Jack blew his hair out of his face. “Nowhere in particular. Just keeping moving. So tell me, how’s the internship going? You feel like fancy college material yet?”

 

“It’s fine, Jack. Nothing special. I get to be around Dr. Larkson all day long, just in case you were feeling jealous out there in Santa Fe and didn’t know why.”

 

Jack whistled. “Medda is the best woman on the planet, David. I hope you recognize that.”

 

“I do.”

 

“Good.”

 

“What are you doing with yourself?”

 

Jack smiled. “This and that. I went swimming the other day! Did I ever tell you I’m a great swimmer?”

 

“No, you hadn’t!” David said, unable to not be swung up in Jack’s energy. Jack lit up any conversation he was in. It was a magic talent of his. “I didn’t even know you knew how to swim.”

 

“Davey, I’m hurt. Why would you assume I can’t swim?”

 

“I don’t know,” David said, “I don’t know what Santa Fe is like.”

 

“We got pools, David,” Jack said, “And I’m like a fish. I’m like a salmon swimming upstream, my friend.”

 

“Who’d you swim with?”

 

“Friends,” Jack said shortly. David knew from Jack’s Instagram and Snapchat that he had tons of friends in Santa Fe, but he never talked about them in detail with David. He never named a name, and David never saw him texting with anyone or making phone calls. But he had enough friends that—except for one briefly mentioned night in December, by all accounts—he’d been able to couch surf for years.

 

So why wasn’t he with them now?

 

“Jack, where are you staying?” David asked, cutting to the chase.

 

“Ah,” Jack said, “This park bench for one. Right now I mean.”

 

“And tonight?” David asked.

 

“Don’t worry about me, Davey,” Jack said, “I take care of myself.”

 

Alarm sped through David’s brain. For all the insecurity and fear he’d grown up with, he’d never not had somewhere to sleep.

 

“Jack, you’re not going to sleep in that park, are you?”

 

The camera view switched to show a park lit by twilight. “It’s a good park!” Jack said loudly, “It would be blessed to see the likes of me as a guest.”

 

“Your friends?” David asked.

 

“Eh,” Jack said, “Parents in the middle of a divorce, evicted, have family in town, there’s a reason for all of them. They’re good folks, David, I don’t want you getting it twisted.”

 

“But you can’t stay with any of them tonight?”

 

The camera view switched back to Jack’s face. “Look, you don’t gotta worry. I’m fine.”

 

Then why did he send David seven texts?

 

“Is there like….” A shelter? A hotel? A car? “…somewhere you can sleep?”

 

“Don’t worry,” Jack repeated. “It’s easier now I’m nineteen. There’s a hostel I been saying in, but I ran out of money, see and they don’t like that.”

 

Jack would never ask him for money. He was too proud.

 

And David didn’t have much to give.

 

“How much is the hostel?” he asked.

 

“Don’t. Worry. David.”

 

“Let me worry,” David said, “How much?”

 

“Twenty dollars?”

 

That would leave David with sixteen dollars until he got paid in a week.

 

They had enough groceries in their kitchen to last four more days, and David could use three dollars to by a loaf of bread and make that last. And he had—

 

He had Spot.

 

Spot wouldn’t let anything happen to him.

 

“Hold on,” he said to Jack. “I’m going to Venmo you. I’m going to close the FaceTime so I can—“

 

“Don’t be stupid, Dave,” Jack said, “I know you ain’t got no money. You give me twenty dollars what’s that mean? You eat nothing but bread till next Friday? I know the pay schedule man. Then where’s the get me the next night, calling Crutchy for money? No. I’m better on my own.”

 

Then why did he text David?

 

Why would he give him the knowledge that his best friend was sleeping in a park and refuse to let him help? Didn’t he know David? Didn’t he know that he wouldn’t be okay with that?

 

“Is there any chance that any of your friends will be able to house you later? Like tomorrow?”

 

Jack grinned, but it didn’t stay on his face long. It slid off, and for the first time in the conversation, it was easy to see how tired he was. “I don’t know, man.”

 

“We’ve talked before now,” David said, “We’ve talked a lot. We’ve been texting. We—you didn’t tell me _any of this._ ”

 

He wanted Spot to come out, and hear what was going on. He wanted to not be alone.

 

Jack shrugged. “Weren’t nothing to tell. I thought I’d figure it out. I’ve always figured it out. It’s different now, you know. I’ve been gone. People ain’t used to having to put up with me.”

 

What was he supposed to here? Was he supposed to sit on the phone with Jack for five more minutes, then leave him alone to sleep in a park? He couldn’t do that. He would rob a bank and fly out to Santa Fe himself to stop that from happening.

 

“Jack,” he said, “You have to let me pay for your hostel tonight. You have to. We’re—we’re brothers. We can’t let each other be alone like this. It’s not okay.”

 

“And tomorrow?” Jack asked, “What are you going to do then? Cause I don’t have a job, Dave. The camp didn’t hire me back. The stipend don’t come in for weeks, and last month’s stipend is gone. I got nothing, Dave.”

 

“You didn’t tell me that.”

 

“I didn’t want you to think I’m a loser,” Jack said, “God. I’m such a—this place ain’t the place I left, you know? It’s not the same.”

 

David thought of his trip home, over Christmas, how the house had seemed to shift and cover his absence. And that was a permanent home. His brain was turning and organizing to try to figure out how to fix things, how to get Jack and job and a place to live from two thousand miles away? They were so far apart that when Jack showed him the route he was taking to Santa Fe, Google Maps zoomed out and showed the curvature of the Earth. That’s how far away they were.

 

And there was an empty bed in Swifty’s apartment, and Jack would have free rent here if he came, and all it would take was a form submitted to Denton.

 

“Jack,” he said, “You know you have free rent here.”

 

Jack was silent. He put the phone down on his lap, then picked it up. “I live here, Dave.”

 

“Where, Jack? Where ‘here’ do you live?”

 

“This bench, right now,” Jack snapped.

 

“You’re legally homeless,” David said, “I’m sorry if you didn’t know that, but it’s true. You need a place to live, and you can live here.”

 

“What?” Jack said, “You miss me that bad?”

 

“Yes,” David said, “And I think you need a place to live.”

 

“Fine,” Jack said, “I changed my mind. Hang up and Venmo me twenty dollars.”

 

“Jack—”

 

“How do you propose I _get_ to New York? You probably have forty dollars to your name right now, right? And twenty of it is promised to your parents? And I got,” the camera shifted and came back to Jack holding a couple crumbled dollar bills, “I got three dollars. You know a three dollar bus fare? You know someone with two hundred bucks?”

 

David sat back on the couch. He did know someone with two hundred dollars. Probably. But Spot—would he even be willing to do this? Would he care that Jack was homeless, after all, he’d been through? Would Jack even be willing to accept charity from Spot?

 

He knew that Spot would give him the money if he asked.

 

“Hold on,” he said, “Stay here.”

 

“Not going anywhere,” Jack said.

 

In their room, Spot was lying perpendicular across the pushed together twin beds. He was still dressed and his shoes were still on, and he was lying with his phone above his head, texting rapidly.

 

“Boots?”

 

“Racetrack.”

 

David nodded, but Spot didn’t see it because he was staring at his phone. “Hey, I need you to look at me for a sec.”

 

Spot groaned and sat up, letting his phone fall onto his stomach. “What’s up? Jack on drugs?”

 

“He’s not on drugs.”

 

“Because the only reason he’s not a stoner is because he’s so fucking broke.”

 

“He’s still—” David stopped himself. “Can I borrow some money?”

 

“Yes,” Spot said immediately.

 

“You don’t even know how much.”

 

“How much?”

 

“Probably between two hundred and two hundred fifty.”

 

“Yes,” Spot said again, firmly.

 

David blinked. He was expecting at least some antagonism, some sign that this was the burden that David knew it was. For the first time, he wondered just how much money Spot had.

 

“Don’t you want to know what it’s for?” David asked.

 

Spot fell back on the bed and lifted the phone above his head again. “I’m guessing it’s to get Jackie Boy back here and save him from his pathetic homelessness.”

 

He didn’t think that Jack had ever revealed to Spot that he was homeless. David certainly hadn’t. And he hadn’t told Spot what was going on with Jack tonight. “Were you eavesdropping?”

 

“Nope,” Spot said to his phone, “Just could have seen this coming a mile away.”

 

“I’ll pay you back. I get paid next week, and I can give you part of it.”

 

Spot waved him off. “Just don’t tell Jack where you got it, yeah?”

 

Of course, Jack wasn’t stupid either.

 

“I don’t want Spot’s money,” he laughed, “David, did you think I don’t know what you leaving the room just now meant? Do you think I think you have a bank in your bedroom? Come on. Spot Conlon is—“

 

“My boyfriend,” David said, relishing the words even as his focus was on Jack. “He’s doing this for me, not for you. And I’m doing this for you.”

 

Jack groaned. “It’s getting late. Listen—I’m going to pay you back. Okay? Let’s just—sorry. Let’s just start with the twenty dollars? I’ll think about the rest and let you know.”

 

“I’ll Venmo it to you now,” David promised.

 

“Hey Davey?”

 

“Yeah?

 

 

“Real glad Denton put us together, man.”

 

David took a shower—five minutes since he’d never gotten out of the habit from knowing exactly how much running water cost per minute. When he got out Spot was still lying on the beds, but he’d changed into his black hoodie and boxers.

 

“Aren’t you hot?”

 

Spot lifted his head up enough to pull his hood over his eyes and fell back on the bed.

 

David pulled on his boxers and found a t-shirt on the floor. He realized as he was pulling it on that it was Spot’s, but he didn’t care. He flopped down on the bed next to Spot, letting his legs rest over the edge of Spot’s side. He reached over and his hand met Spot’s, which was already searching for his.

 

They lay in silence for a few minutes, staring up at the barren white ceiling above their beds. Bed. David felt how warm Spot’s hand was, the feeling of his hoodie against his shoulder. The air conditioner hummed in the kitchen.

 

And he was thinking about Jack.

 

He hummed and let out a breath. “It’s early,” he said.

 

“We’re old people,” Spot groaned, “We’ve gone to sleep early every night this week. Dude, it’s Friday. We should be out getting drunk or something.”

 

“We never go out to get drunk,” David said, “Like, ever.”

 

“I think Blink and Mush were going out,” Spot said, “We could have gone with them if Jack didn’t have an emergency.”

 

“He _did_ have an emergency,” David defended, “And do you seriously want to spend more time with other people?” Spot may not have liked being alone, but he didn’t like being with people either.

 

Spot squeezed his hand then turned his head away to compensate. “No,” he admitted. “I didn’t ask Blink to come over in the first place.”

 

“Thank god. What have you been doing all these days without me?”

 

“What do you usually do during the summer?” Spot asked without any segue.

 

“Um,” he said, “Like, recently?”

 

“Yeah,” Spot said.

 

“Well, last summer I worked at the grocery store as many hours as they would give me, and I was working for my sister at Walgreens too.”

 

“Before that?”

 

Didn’t Spot want to talk about the fact that David had just asked him for more money than he’d ever asked anyone for? Was he at all concerned about that? “What, like when I was a kid?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Um. I—my parents got us scholarships to go to camps. Which was nice of them. I learned archery, swam. Went to the beach.”

 

Spot turned his head to him, pulling the hoodie off his eyes. “The beach?”

 

“Lake Michigan.”

 

He turned away again. “Right. Right.”

 

“What did you do last summer?”

 

There was a pause, then, “I was still in high school. I had to finish a year worth of credits to get here.”

 

“Before that?”

 

Spot sat up. “Did you tell Jack where you got the money?”

 

David let it drop. This was what he actually wanted to talk about, really. “He figured it out. I’m going to pay you back, you know.”

 

“Whatever,” Spot said, “He sleeping out?”

 

David guessed at what that meant. “No, I Venmo’d him some money for a hostel.” Spot made a face towards the ceiling that David saw out of the corner of his vision. “What?”

 

“Nothing,” Spot said, “Don’t tell anyone else about the money, okay? Not Denton, especially.”

 

“I won’t,” David promised. “You know, most people would want other people to know that they did something nice.” Spot rolled on top of David kissed him in an obvious distraction tactic, so David gave in for a few seconds before pulling away. “Seriously.”

 

Spot sighed. “Most people wouldn’t freak the fuck out at the idea of someone sleeping out and bus them across the planet but you did. So we’re both freaks.”

 

“I just did what anyone would do,” David said.

 

“Trust me,” Spot said, “you didn’t.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Where’s David?”

 

“You want to see David?”

 

Boots shrugged and took a heaping spoonful of his ice cream. Aunt Elane had let them go down the block to get ice cream after visibly confirming that Spot’s phone was charged and he had twenty dollars.

 

They were in an ice cream shop with only six chairs and three tables, but after three minutes of pointed hovering, they’d gotten some high schoolers to move and got a table. The shop was full of people standing around with rapidly melting ice cream talking loudly, but it was okay because Boots was talking louder.

 

“I like David,” he said, “He’s funny. Boring funny. But funny.”

 

“He’s at work.”

 

“What! It’s Saturday. He at the library?”

 

“Yep,” Spot said. “He got another job now too, something even more boring.”

 

Boot laughed, then his face lit up. “Hey, I got a job!”

 

What the fuck? Boots was fourteen, he shouldn’t have a job. Wasn’t the point of him getting adopted that he got to do normal kid things now? Spot was pretty sure most fourteen-year-olds didn’t have a job.

 

“ _You_ were making money when you were fourteen,” Boots said, anticipating Spot’s thoughts. “And anyway, it’s just watering plants for a couple ladies in Aunt Elane’s building. They’re paying me good though! I’m getting twenty dollars tomorrow!”

 

“It ain’t the same,” Spot said. “I’ll give you money if you need money.”

 

Boots made a face and poked at his ice cream. “You don’t gotta give me money. I can earn it myself. I’m older than you were when we met, in case you didn’t learn math at that fancy college of yours.”

 

Spot raised his eyebrows. He wasn’t buying what Boots was putting down, even if he hadn’t really put together that Boots was currently a year older than Spot was when he met Boots, trying to lift a bag of chips in a bodega. Badly, too. It was lucky Spot was there.

 

“What do you need money for?” Spot asked. He was ready to kill Aunt Elane dead if it was for food. He didn’t care about going to prison, not where Boots was concerned.

 

But he didn’t think it was that.

 

“Video games, duh,” Boots said, “I already played out all the games you and Aunt Elane gave me for my birthday.”

 

Relief fought to step in front of the tension Spot was still feeling at the idea that Boots might have been in danger. It was so freaking normal. Like kids on TV, or David even. He should be happy that Boots was trying to earn some scratch for something as stupid as a video game.

 

“I can give you money,” Spot reminded him. “If you ever need it. If there’s something Aunt Elane isn’t buying for you. You have my number.”

 

Boots ignored that. “So do you have a job?”

 

“Did Aunt Elane ask you to ask me that?” Spot asked.

 

“Your ice cream is melting,” Boots pointed out. Spot looked down. Coffee ice cream was dripping down his hand. He’d been ignoring it since Boots started talking about his job. Unwilling to lick his own hand and make a mess of himself, he twisted around and threw his ice cream in the trash. “No,” Boots continued, “Just. You’re an adult now. Adults are supposed to do things.”

 

“Don’t you figure I deserve a break?” Spot asked, “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been in school since the moment I got pinched. And before that, I was fucking busy all the damn time.”

 

Boots made a face. “Because of me?”

 

“Because that’s life when you’re not a rich kid,” Spot said, “Not because of you. I don’t know. Do you want me to have a job?”

 

Boots laughed. “I don’t care. I just don’t think I’ve ever seen you _not_ do anything. Even when we had some money, you was always reading or writing in your notebooks. Maybe you could write a book."

 

Spot though of the email from Kloppman sitting unreplied to in his inbox, sandwiched between delivery promos and spam. He did not want to have a fucking “tête-à-tête” about the garbage poems he turned in and the stupid stories he wrote. He did that for a grade, but Kloppman had clearly made up something about him from his writing, like Denton had. And it was all a game to Spot, not this passion project. Everything he wrote was a means to an end even that—

 

Even that one poem.

 

“Do you want me to write a book?” he asked Boots.

 

“I don’t want you to do nothing,” Boots answered, “Just you’re annoying when you’re bored is all.”

 

“A professor emailed me,” he admitted, “said he might have some work for me. Or something.”

 

“Damn, you’re fancy,” Boots crowed, “You doing it?”

 

“It’s probably something lame,” Spot said, “A waste of my time.”

 

“Oh,” Boots said, “yeah. Okay.” He stood up and grabbed his ice cream cup. “Will you buy me some Cheetos?”

 

A little thrown off, Spot stood up and followed him out the door. “I thought you didn’t need my money.”

 

“I don’t, Spot, I need Cheetos.”

 

 

  
To: ckloppman@pulitzer.edu

From: sconlon@pulitzer.edu   
Subject: CW 100 Final

 

 

Hello Kloppman.

 

Interested in learning more. Don’t know what about my work you would want to talk about, but I might be interested in some side work. When do you want to meet?

 

Spot Conlon

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

David hoped that by the time Spot got home Jack would have answered his texts.

 

But he hadn’t.

 

It was a Saturday and he still lived in Manhattan, worried or not, so he went to New York Public Library and saw the lions and pretended to have gone there for the first time. He walked around the square on the library block with vendors he didn’t think about approaching because he had sixteen dollars in his bank account. He found a bench and ate some of the leftover candy that Spot had bought.

 

And Jack didn’t text him back.

 

He headed back when Spot texted him that he was on the A train, headed home. Swifty had invited them over to dinner at his apartment—which knowing Swifty might just be chips and ice. David didn’t have anything to offer except toast, so he couldn’t help but hope that Spot was in one of his generous moods and had decided to buy food on his way home.

 

Spot got home twenty minutes after he did, with a bag full of candy and a six pack of beer under each arm.

 

“Don’t,” he said when David started to comment on it, “This is for me. I’m not sharing. If we’re going to Swifty’s I’ll need something to eat.”

 

“Candy?”

 

“I said _don’t._ ” Spot dropped the six packs and fell onto the couch. “What’s wrong?”

 

David hadn’t said more than one word and he wasn’t _crying_ or anything so he didn’t know what Spot was talking about. But he was upset.

 

“Jack hasn’t texted me back.”

 

“Oh,” Spot said, “Okay.”

 

He kicked at where Spot was lying on the couch, making him sit up so he could sit down. “I don’t know where he is. I don’t know if he’s alive. I don’t know what’s happening.”

 

“He’s alive,” Spot said, “He’s just as homeless now as he was yesterday.”

 

Which wasn’t good. Any amount of homeless was bad. Spot had to know that. Spot had to personally know that. How could he be so cavalier about this?

 

“What if he’s out of minutes and he can’t afford to buy new minutes? I never Venmo’d home the bus money, Spot. He’ll be stranded.”

 

Spot sighed. “What, you have no faith in Jack? You think he can’t handle himself? It’s summer. He’s nineteen, dude. He’s been at this a while.”

 

Belatedly—almost a day later—David realized why Spot wasn’t as alarmed as he was.

 

“I think he shouldn’t have to,” David said, “He has the right to housing. He should be here. I should have just sent him the money last night. I should have just—“

 

A notification came through his phone that Jack was FaceTiming him and David answered immediately. “Jack?”

 

Spot got up and went into the bedroom and closed the door.

 

Jack waved to him. He was inside somewhere, in a café or something. He was wearing different clothes from the night before and his hair looked cleaner.

 

“Hey David!” he said loudly. David could just picture other café patrons looking his way at the noise.

 

“Jack, are you alright? You haven’t answered my texts.”

 

“C’mon David, it ain’t that serious, I been busy.” David put his phone down and picked up his laptop. “Whoa, is that your ceiling? Classy joint, man.”

 

“I’m picking you back up in a minute,” David promised, “I’m pulling up the bus routes I found.” He waited for a reply but Jack was silent. All he heard was the sound of people talking and milling around the café. “There’s one that leaves tomorrow for $216, which is a steal. I’m borrowing $250 from Spot, so if you stay in the hostel again tonight, and—I don’t know what you’ll do about food but—“

 

“David,” Jack cut him off, “I can’t take your money.”

 

“Yes you can,” David said without pausing. “Jack, you need this. You can pay me back when the stipend comes through.”

 

Jack was quiet. He rubbed his face and looked off camera. “What if you just—if you leant me the money, okay? And I used it to stay in this—the hostel is real great David. Real good people—I use it to stay in the hostel until the stipend comes through.”

 

“Then what?” David asked. “The stipend ain’t enough for a hostel every night and food, Jack. It’s not. I’ve done the math. You need to come out here.”

 

Jack sighed and dragged his gaze onto the camera. “This is my home, David.”

 

“Jack, what’s your home? Your friends who can’t even put you up? The hostel? What Jack?”

 

“You don’t get it,” Jack snapped, “This ain’t got nothing to do with you. You can’t just save me because you got a rich boyfriend now.”

 

“Spot isn’t rich,” David said, even though he knew that wasn’t the point. “Jack, I don’t get you. You have somewhere safe to live here, and all it takes in an email to Denton. What’s keeping you there?”

 

He thought of the first day he met Jack. How Jack had nothing more than a backpack and a smile that was mostly meant for Sarah, who was there moving them in. His charm was turned to eleven and he walked around introducing David to the others, as though he hadn’t only met them half an hour before David had arrived.

 

Jack easily gathered the respect of every guy on their floor. He hosted parties as often as he could, and David often woke up to someone asleep on their floor. Jack accumulated broken down computers and collected short paperback books from library book sales and used bookstores. He didn’t just live in their room, he belonged to it. He made it his home.

 

When it was time to move out, Jack packed in one afternoon when David was gone. He knew that Denton had gotten Jack storage space on campus, but it was still disquieting to see Jack back to just his backpack.

 

They stared at each other for a moment. Jack finally broke eye contact and said, “I’m not giving up on Santa Fe—”

 

“No, of course not—”

 

“—I just. What would the fellas say if they knew I couldn’t hack it? Shit, what does _Spot_ think of all this?”

 

“He doesn’t matter,” David insisted, “We aren’t made just to hack it, Jack. It’s okay to be safe. New York has a place for you, Jack. We have a place for you. You belong here.”

 

Jack sighed and scrubbed his hand through his hair. “It’s just one summer, yeah. You ain’t in Chicago this summer, but that don’t mean it ain’t your home.”

 

 _Yes._ Finally.

 

“Spot has already Venmo’d me the money. I’ll send it to you and I’ll text you the link to the bus tickets.”

 

“Just like that?”

 

“Just like that. You gotta email Denton, but even if it takes some time to get it set up, you can stay with me and Spot.”

 

“Spot know about that?” Jack asked.

 

“Oh,” David said, “I’m sure he’ll be fine with it.”

 

They said their goodbyes, mainly because someone came over to Jack in the café and complained about the noise. Jack promised he would go to the hostel tonight, and he would text David once he was on the bus.

 

Then it was time to tell Spot.

 

Who took it well.

 

“He ain’t sleeping in our room,” Spot said, not looking at him. He was sitting cross legged on the bed, staring at his laptop screen.

 

“That was never an option,” David said. “Are you pissed?”

 

“Why?” Spot said distractedly.

 

“Because I’m borrowing a ton of money from you and I invited my roommate to stay with us without asking you.”

 

Spot glanced up at him then looked back at his computer. “Is that rude?”

 

“It’s very rude.”

 

Spot hummed. “Well he ain’t coming for a couple days, and I haven’t seen you all day so I don’t want to be mad at you when I ain’t actually mad. That’s like, some bullshit. Can we just hang out here until this stupid dinner?”

 

David sat down on the bed. “Do you not want to go?”

 

“I’ll go,” Spot said.

 

“Because I think it’s good that you’re friends with Blink now, and I think you could be friends with Mush and Swifty too.” Then realized something. “Oh damn. I forgot to talk to Skittery about his GPA.”

 

Spot gave him a look. “It’s really bothering you that much?”

 

“Yeah, it is.”

 

“You know other people’s shit isn’t your problem right? Especially not people you don’t like?”

 

This was a place where they different, drastically. David subscribed to the idea that if he had the power to help, then he would help. He wouldn’t cut himself off at the knees to do it, but he would help. He recognized that he was possibly one of three people that Spot counted worth helping. But he wasn’t the weird one.

 

“I think that other people’s shit are my problems when they’re part of my community,” David said, “And Skittery is. And David is. And you are. So.”

 

Spot nodded. “And you want me to have friends.”

 

David leaned back on his elbows. “I want you to do something, man. I know you have Boots and you have me but don’t think I haven’t noticed that you're not writing as many papers. It’s summer. Things are slowed down. I don’t know. So I’m glad you’re friends with Blink now, but—”

 

“I’m meeting with a professor to talk about some work,” Spot told him, “Did you think I was planning on spending the entire summer waiting for you to get home?”

 

Yes.

 

“No,” David said, “That’s awesome. You’d be great at that. Whatever that is.”

 

“Not your problem,” Spot reminded him, “but thanks.”

 


	6. All the Same I Play this Game

“I have all my fingers—“

 

“Oh my god.”

 

“—and I’ve gotta chop chop chop—”

 

“Oh my god stop!”

 

“If I miss the space between my fingers will come off! And if I hit my fingers, blood will soon come out—”

 

“David!”

 

“—but all the same I play this game ‘cause that’s what it’s all about, hey!”

 

David dropped the knife on their newly acquired cutting board and waved his hand in the air as though to say, “look I didn’t chop my fingers off” considering he’d been literally stabbing a knife between his splayed fingers while singing a stupid song just a second ago.

 

“Jesus Christ,” Spot laughed, “You’re fucking insane.”

 

David grinned and offered the knife to Spot. “Debate team,” he said as an answer to the unasked question—where the fuck did David learn that game? “We got bored in hotel rooms during tournaments.”

 

Spot accepted the knife. “I’m taking this away from you.”

 

“Aw, c’mon Spot,” David said, “You could go slow.”

 

“I’m not in the habit of stabbing myself, thanks,” Spot said, “For fuck's sake.”

 

David grinned stupidly. They weren’t even drunk. It was seven in the morning. David was wearing one of the three shirts he wore to his internship, and Spot was only up because Kloppman had requested to meet ungodly early in the morning.

 

And David decided it was time to play a knife game.

 

“You don’t even know the stupid stuff I learned on the debate team,” David said, “This is scratching the surface.”

 

“I thought I was the one with the fucked up background,” Spot joked, “You’re proving all of us wrong.”

 

David stood up and put the cutting board away. “Maybe I should start doing that at parties, people won’t think I’m such a goodie goodie.”

 

Spot put the knife in a drawer and shook his head. “Everyone else will be drunk. Swifty will think it’s a good idea because you thought it was a good idea. And he’ll cut off his hand.”

 

“And you don’t want Swifty to cut off his hand.”

 

“I don’t want you to go to prison,” Spot corrected.

 

“Aww,” David said. “Well now that I’ve shown you that, do _you_ at least not think I’m a goodie goodie?”

 

Spot sat down on the couch and started pulling on his boots. David stared at him until he put on the one button up he owned, but he kept his jeans. His meeting with Kloppman was starting in half an hour—at _seven thirty_ —and it would take twenty minutes to get to the English building. He wasn’t in the habit of arriving late for meetings, which was something David had remarked on a few times before and thankfully didn’t mention this morning.

 

“You don’t have to stab yourself to prove you aren’t a goodie goodie,” Spot said.

 

“I didn’t stab myself!” David said. “Lighten up, I didn’t _die.”_

 

“Are you going to show that great show to Denton?” Spot asked.

 

David shrugged, “Thought I’d save something for later in the internship. We’re going to spend all day going over applications. You know everyone I say no to is someone who probably won’t go to college? No pressure of anything.”

 

David had been talking about this all weekend.

 

“If they can’t put together a good application—“ Spot started.

 

“They probably had systemic skill gaps or resource gaps that created obstacles to developing a highly specific skill in selling themselves,” David cut in.

 

“You’ve said that six times this weekend,” Spot said.

 

“It’s been true six times,” David said.

 

“Ever think of going into social work?” Spot joked.

 

“You hate social workers,” David said as he grabbed his wallet off the bar and fit it into his messenger bag.

 

What? “That don’t matter. I was kidding, anyway.”

 

“Well. Whatever. I already have Denton on me about picking a major, and he’s pushing me towards the social sciences, not social services. But. Whatever. Do you want to walk out together? I want to go for a walk before going to the office.”

 

Spot wasn’t nervous for his meeting with Kloppman. His whole life was meetings with adults, most of whom hated him. He was showing up so he could tell Boots and David that he had, not because he expected anything to come out of it. He’d never met with a teacher or professor by choice, which meant he was already in more control than he’d been in before.

 

Still. He wasn’t nervous.

 

“Whatever,” Spot said.

 

“Do you mean, ‘yes David, I would appreciate the support before my big meeting.’”

 

“It ain’t a big meeting,” Spot said, “But yeah. Whatever.”

 

David smiled. “Whatever,” he agreed.

 

Kloppman had emailed him a code to get into the building—something that 2015 Spot would have taken advantage of in a heartbeat and that 2017 Spot was surprised by. How did he know that Spot wasn’t going to break in and steal computers? He was ready for someone to show up and start yelling at him when he entered the passcode, but no one did. He didn’t see a soul as he walked through the halls and took the elevator to Kloppman’s office on the fourth floor.

 

Kloppman was the oldest teacher or professor Spot had ever had. He had to be in his eighties. He had shock white hair and rimless glasses that he only sometimes wore, and a bowler hat that he rarely wore. He stuttered sometimes and other students in the class texted under the circled tables during workshops, but Spot could tell Kloppman noticed it even if he never commented. Spot couldn’t figure out how early he arrived to class, but it always irked him that no matter how early he was, Kloppman was already there.

 

Once, when Spot showed up thirty minutes early for his 2:30 class, Kloppman commented on it. “Do you think we’re going to start without you, son?” he asked.

 

“No,” Spot said.

 

“Most students, they come here seventeen seconds before class starts with Starbucks,” Kloppman observed.

 

“Okay,” Spot had said.

 

“I appreciate it,” Kloppman said, then went back to fighting with his laptop. It occurred to Spot that he could help Kloppman, but he didn’t.

 

As he rode the elevator he tried to figure out who Kloppman thought he was. He never wrote anything personal in his stories or—the poems could have been about anyone. He couldn’t know the shit that made people feel bad for Spot, made people want to do things for him, so this whole wanting Spot to work for him was probably just because no one else Kloppman knew was on campus. Not the handful of students who were obvious seventh gen, who fawned over Kloppman and spoke without reservation during their workshops. Spot didn’t say a word, barely spoke when it was his turn for his pieces to be picked apart by college freshman who claimed his stories about the racetrack were “rote” and “reductive.”

 

Really, Kloppman probably just thought he wasn’t annoying.

 

Kloppman’s office was at the end of a long hall, and from the elevator, Spot could see Kloppman standing in the hall. He gestured for Spot to come to him like Spot was about to break into a run or something. He continued walking at the same pace until he was about fifteen feet away and Kloppman disappeared into his office. Then he did pick up the pace a little.

 

He stepped into Kloppman’s office. He’d never been in a professor’s office before, but it was about how he expected it. The room was small and the window was covered up by plants. Kloppman’s walls were covered with bookshelves installed into the wall, obviously organized methodically. There were anthologies and entire shelves of short narrow books of poetry and entire shelf dedicated to _The Sun_ , Pulitzer's literary journal. Spot knew Kloppman was the main staff who oversaw it, because he brought it up constantly in class and wrote SUBMIT TO _THE SUN_ in block letters at the top of the poem.

 

“Sit,” Kloppman said, “Candy?” He held out a jar of wrapped hard candies.

 

The dude was old.

 

“No thanks,” Spot said, sitting in one of the green chairs across from Kloppman’s desk. Kloppman sat down and leaned back in his chair.

 

“You did not take my class seriously,” he said, like they were thirty minutes into a conversation. Seriously, what the fuck.

 

“You don’t want to exchange pleasantries first?” Spot said, unable to muster up a flat denial.

 

“You wrote about topics you weren’t passionate about,” Kloppman said, as though he wasn’t being totally weird, “You did not participate in workshops. Your writing is mechanically perfect, but you never followed the advice I left on your work in revisions. The reason you are here today is the poetry unit.”

 

Fuck.

 

“I didn’t take that seriously either,” Spot said, knowing he was torpedoing this.

 

Kloppman opened a manila file that was already on his desk, which was a new move. Most people had to fumble for files, but he was ready to go. “When I asked you to write a poem about something that makes you happy, you wrote an otherwise unimpressive coded poem in which the first letter of every seventh word spelled out ‘Fuck Off.’”

 

Spot couldn’t help but let his eyes go wide. He tried not to, seriously. But he had to give Kloppman credit. He’d been pulling that shit since he figured out how to write codes in his essays, but no one had ever decoded it out before.

 

“How’d you figure that out?” Spot couldn’t help but ask.

 

“Your unusual word choice merited further exploration,” Kloppman said. “Quite a few words that started with ‘f’.”

 

“Sorry,” Spot said.

 

Kloppman held up his hands, gesturing to the books in the room. “I am an artist, Mr. Conlon,” he said, “Vulgar language does not hurt me. Not trying hurts me.”

 

Was this a trap? Had Kloppman baited him with the promise of a job just to tell him that he was changing his grade?

 

“You gave me an A,” Spot said, voice hard, “You can’t change that now.”

 

Kloppman closed the file. “I have no interest in the paperwork required, much less looking like a fool. I gave you an A intentionally. I am not so old, kid.”

 

“You’re not going to change my grade?” Spot asked.

 

“You earned an A with your last poem,” Kloppman said. “It’s not too late to submit it for the journal.”

 

“No thanks,” Spot said, deflating somewhat. He wasn’t going to act like a total spineless loser, but maybe he could afford to not be as pissy.

 

Kloppman nodded. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised by that. In any case. I heard you were on campus. And I could use some help.”

 

“With what?” Spot asked.

 

He stood up and grabbed a copy of _The Sun_ off the shelf. He handed it to Spot who accepted it but didn’t open it. “Can you keep a secret, son?” Kloppman asked.

 

 _Can you stop calling me that?_ Spot thought.

 

“Professionally,” Spot answered.

 

“I am retiring at the end of next year,” Kloppman said. “I have been with this university for almost sixty years. I started down at the Lodging House as a—what do you call them these days? Housing director, I believe is the title you would be familiar with. Of course, it was different back then. I earned my masters and found myself working the same classes for decades. I have seen many students come and go. Most are ordinary, very few are extraordinary. I don’t know which you are, son. And that’s unusual. I believe that’s up to you.”

 

What the fuck? What the fuck kind of meeting was this?

 

“But I know,” Kloppman continued, “that your attention to detail and mechanical skills are what I need. You see, I can’t leave _The Sun_ in the state it’s in now. It’s not archived properly. It’s impossible to search for a piece without picking up each copy and flipping through it. In this day and age, that puts us behind. I need someone to read every journal, write a blurb with keywords about each piece, and create an archive.”

 

That sounded doable. Boring, but doable.

 

“I’m—“ Spot started, but then stopped himself when he realized that Kloppman hadn't actually asked him to do anything.

 

Kloppman continued, “I can’t pay you much. But I can offer you a higher hourly wage than you would get with a typical work study, and I will let you use my coffee machine.”

 

Spot waited.

 

None of that was revealed to be a joke in the ten seconds he waited.

 

“I’m an Economics major,” Spot said. “Don’t you want someone—like an _actual_ Creative Writing major? Or an upperclassman?”

 

Kloppman gave him a mournful look. “Economics?” he said, “No wonder you seem so unhappy.”

 

Seriously. What. The. Fuck.

 

“I’m not unhappy,” Spot snapped, “I’m not going to be poor for the rest of my life.”

 

Kloppman raised his eyebrows. “I see. So I suppose you have a lucrative internship in finance somewhere on Wall Street and you took the morning off just to meet with me? To humor an old man?”

 

“No,” Spot admitted, “but that don’t mean I’m right for this.”

 

Kloppman stood up. “Well, I won’t beg you. It was good to see you again.”

 

“That’s it?” Spot asked, standing.

 

“That’s it. If you don’t want to work for me, I will not ask twice.”

 

“Is this a trick?”

 

“It’s not a trick,” Kloppman said, “I am an old man. I have no interest in working with someone who—“

 

“I’ll do it,” Spot said. He didn’t know why he said it, he was surprised even as his words came out, and his mind grasped for more words to fill the space that was currently only filled by Kloppman smiling at him.

 

Just like that, Kloppman sat back down. “Well, marvelous,” he said, as though he wasn’t about to kick Spot out of his office, “I don’t suppose you want to start now?”

 

What the fuck had just happened?

 

Unsure of himself, Spot stayed standing. It was always better to be standing, in situations like this. “Don’t you gotta run a background check on me or something?”

 

“I hardly care if you were a professional thief before you entered my classroom. Are you a fast reader?”

 

“Yes,” Spot said, finding himself in a position to brag about this for the first time in his life, “I read 1020 words a minute.”

 

Kloppman nodded to the journal still in Spot’s hands. “As long as you don’t sacrifice comprehension, that is wonderful. That’s the oldest edition. I want you to read through it and start the archive today.”

 

“Just like that?”

 

“I believe neither of us are very patient people,” Kloppman said. “Would you rather waste time?”

 

“No,” Spot said.

 

“Well then,” Kloppman said, “Let’s get to it.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Sarah Jacobs: GUESS WHOSE APARTMENT NOW HAS WIFI?

David Jacobs: No way.

Sarah Jacobs: It’s that Assistant Manager money, David! Twenty five dollars a month is nothing compared to the amount I was spending on coffee going to that 24 hour coffee shop during code-a-thons.

David Jacobs: Damn. I’m happy to Les. That’s going to make middle school much easier. That’s when we started practically living at the library.

David Jacobs: *for Les.

Sarah Jacobs: His school is giving him a laptop next year! All his textbooks are going to be digital, so he really needed WiFi.

David Jacobs: Do you need help paying for the laptop?

Sarah Jacobs: No, it was free, but even so I’m an ASSISTANT MANAGER NOW so I’ve got it.

David Jacobs: You’re sure?

Sarah Jacobs: Just worry about school! Mama and Papa are so proud of their college boy.

David Jacobs: LOL don’t remind me.

 

 

The family getting WiFi meant that David was able to Skype with them for the first time since March. They set up a time to talk on Tuesday, a few hours before Spot and David were leaving for Midtown to pick up Jack from the bus stop.

 

Spot was in the apartment five minutes before his parents were supposed to call, which was new. Usually Spot practically left the dorm when it was time for David to talk to his parents.

 

“Do you want to talk to them?” David asked.

 

Spot took the cap off a cup of Italian ice and stabbed it with a plastic spoon. “Nah,” he said.

 

“They want to meet you,” David said, “they’re starting to think I made you up.”

 

Spot shrugged. He was already avoidant of talking to David’s family before David convinced Spot that telling people 800 miles away that they were in a relationship was not risky. Now that they knew, Spot didn’t just avoid talking to David’s family—he practically eloped every time he came close.

 

Except for today, apparently.

 

“Tell them I’m a vampire,” Spot suggested, “And I don’t show up on camera.”

 

“Reading some paranormal fiction for Kloppman?” David asked.

 

Spot rolled his eyes. “I’m still in the forties,” he said.

 

“No vampires in the forties?”

 

The skype noises started up on David’s laptop and just like that Spot was gone. David turned his attention to his laptop and answered the phone. Les, his mom and his dad were clustered around the kitchen table, smiling into the laptop.

 

“David!” Mom yelled, “We have wiffy!”

 

“I heard!” David said, “Mama, you don’t have to yell, I can hear you.”

 

“David you know I don’t know how this works!”

 

“It’s called WiFi, Mom,” Les said. He was wearing a soccer jersey, and David realized he probably hadn’t changed since coming home from camp. “I can play computer games now.”

 

“Don’t let it rot your brain or anything,” David said, “You still need to read books.”

 

Les rolled his eyes.

 

“David, tell us about you,” Mom said, “I still don’t understand what you’re doing with your internship.”

 

David tried to explain the process he and Denton were going through, and his parents were nodding along. David knew it was simple enough to understand—they’d applied for jobs and aid and things like that, it wasn’t like not going to college precluded them from understanding the process he and Denton were going through.

 

He told them about going to the movie in the park with Spot too, and the trip they’d taken to a cookie dough restaurant over the weekend. His parents seemed truly happy that he was having a good summer, so he left out the stress that gave him a stomachache the nights before he went to his internship.

 

“Where’s Scott?” Dad asked.

 

“Spot,” David corrected. He’d said “Spot” about thirty times in the last fifteen minutes.

 

“All your friends have strange names,” Dad observed, “Does the boy have a birthmark or something?

 

Maybe it was good Spot wasn’t here for this. “Anyway,” David cut in, “We’re picking up my roommate Jack from the bus today. He’s staying with us until Monday, then he’s moving in with our friend Swifty. It’ll be good to see him again.”

 

“I like Jack!” Les piped in. He had talked to Jack on the phone a few times and was completely enthralled with his stories about Santa Fe.

 

“We can Skype again when he’s here,” David offered. “Spot and I have to make dinner, so since this isn’t a rare thing anymore, is it okay if I go? I can—“

 

“Wait, David. Tell him your news, Esther,” Dad said, “Your mother has been waiting to tell you something until she saw you in person. This is the closest we can get.”

 

David’s smile faltered.

 

Mom smiled brightly. “David, I got a job! A permanent one!”

 

It was like all the lights in the world had been turned up to eleven. David felt his face contort with shock and then joy. Mom had been getting tailoring gigs on and off since the was fired from the plant when David was in high school, but nothing she would dare call permanent.

 

“Tell me about it!” David rushed, “Oh my god!”

 

“At a dry cleaners,” Mom said proudly, “Nothing fancy of course, nothing like you. But it pays twelve dollars an hour, and that’s nothing to sneeze at!”

 

“No!” David agreed, even as he thought of what Denton was paying him. Twelve dollars an hour would have made a huge difference when he was still living with his parents.

 

Mom smiled and nodded. “I have a place to hang up my coat, and I go to a park across the street to eat my lunch. I told your sister not to tell you, but we are doing very well!”

 

“That’s awesome, Mama,” David said.

 

“So you—we wont’ be calling you for help as much honey,” Mom said, “I want you to buy yourself some nice things.”

 

Even though he’d never heard those words before, David still doubted them. Mom could still get fired, or his dad could fall again. He couldn’t go spending his money when it might leave them on the lurch.

 

“I’m serious, David,” Mom said, “Sarah’s taking care of us, and I am. I want you to just be worried about yourself!”

 

Unexpected irritation surged. “I can take care of you,” David insisted.

 

“It was never your job,” Dad said, “Just worry about you.”

 

Why did people keep saying that to him? Like it wasn’t the worst thing you could say to a person.

 

“Okay,” David said, “I’ll start now. We’re going to make egg grilled cheese for dinner. I’ve gotta go.”

 

“David,” Mom started.

 

“I’m really happy for you, Mama,” he said, “I’ll always take care of you, no matter what. I love you.”

 

Mom started to say something but stopped herself. “We love you too David. Have a good dinner.”

 

Spot came into the room a minute after David closed his laptop. “Were you listening?” David asked.

 

“Nope,” Spot said, “Just could hear when you stopped talking.”

 

“Do you want to learn how to make eggs?” David asked.

 

“You got super loud at the end,” Spot said.

 

“My mom got a job,” David said.

 

“And that’s bad news?” Spot asked.

 

“No, it’s really good news,” David said, “Come on, lets get the burners heated up.”

 

Spot wanted to learn how to flip an egg in the air which David didn’t even know how to do, and YouTube videos were unhelpful with, so they spent up to the last minute before leaving to pick up jack getting cooked egg yolk off the burners. They ate egg grilled cheese—one of his mom’s paycheck week creations—while they worked until David realized that if they didn’t leave they were going to be late for Jack.

 

On the subway they found seats next to each other but they listened to music on their respective phones and didn’t talk. David didn’t mention that Spot leaned against him a little, and Spot didn’t mention that David picked up Spot’s phone a few times to see what he was listening to.

 

At one point he yanked on the cord of Spot’s headphones, dislodging them a little from his ears. Spot pulled them off.

 

“Excuse me?” he said.

 

David pulled out his own earbuds. “You’re listening to Sufjan Stevens,” he said.

 

“I _was,_ ” Spot corrected.

 

“I didn’t know you liked him,” David said.

 

“I don’t,” Spot said, “You do.” He pulled his headphones back on and they didn’t talk again until they were off the subway.

 

Jack’s bus stop was the same street where David had gotten on and off his bus home over winter break. It was freezing and snowing back then, but today the street was clotted with people moving in and out of building and rushing down the street. The bus was late, so he and Spot waited against a wall.

 

"I don't know how Jack is going to be," David said, "He might be different. He's been through a lot."

 

"He'll be fine," Spot said, "He's been living like that since he was what, fourteen? He won't be shell shocked."

 

Spot didn't know everything David knew. Still. Spot was probably right. Maybe Jack didn't need him. Maybe no one did. 

 

“Denton lives near here,” David reminded Spot. “He’s talking about planning a dinner for all the guys. He says six is the most guys who’ve stayed behind before, so he might not have room in his apartment.”

 

“Oh nice,” Spot said, “More time with Denton.”

 

“You know Denton likes you,” David said.

 

“Course he do,” Spot said, “I’m a damn delight.” He nodded towards the street. “Bus.”

 

David looked over and saw a Greyhound stop in the middle of the street. Horns erupted in the air and almost immediately people began pouring out of the bus. David stepped forward, searching for Jack, but he didn’t need to. Jack appeared and before jumping off the bus yelled “Davey!” and waved.

 

Jack didn’t wait for the man who was pulling suitcases out of the compartment below the bus, he just had his red backpack. He pushed his way through the crowd and wove towards David. He pulled him into a tight hug.

 

“Good to see you David,” Jack said quietly, “Damn good to see you.”

 

“Good to see you too, Jack,” David said.

 

Jack grinned and nodded towards Spot, who was still standing against the building. “That’s still happening?”

 

“No sign of it stopping,” David said.

 

“Excellent,” Jack said. “He gonna bankroll us a Tibby’s?”

 

“We have food at home,” David said. He started walking back towards Spot then stopped. “Wait, did you figure out a way to get food on your trip? I should have sent you more money. Damn.”

 

Jack laughed and waved him off. “David, with this charm? I’m never going hungry.”

 

Spot and Jack didn’t talk at all on the trip back to the East Village. Jack and Spot had a mutual respect for one another, but they weren’t exactly friends. They ribbed at each other less than they had since he and Spot got together, but Jack had more than once brought up that he wasn’t sure why David was with Spot.

 

“I don’t know how to explain it,” David had said, “I feel different when I’m with him than I do when I’m with anyone else.”

 

“That’s because he’s hostile,’’ Jack said.

 

“No,” David said firmly, “It’s because he—“ but he couldn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t know how to explain in words they way he felt Spot perceived him, and how it made him feel seen and misunderstood and confused and confirmed in away that he didn’t feel around his friends or his family.

 

That probably didn’t make Jack feel better.

 

Still, Jack was in a good enough mood to cheer when they got back to the apartment and Spot went under the sink and pulled out a bottle of rum.

 

“It’s Tuesday,” David said, “We have work in the morning.”

 

“I don’t!” Jack said, “C’mon Davey. One drink for me.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

David was drunk on a Tuesday.

 

And it wasn’t Spot’s fault.

 

“Spot!” David yelled in his ear, even though there were only six people in their apartment and the music wasn’t that loud, “Do you want to make eggs tomorrow?"

 

Spot couldn't help but smile as he pushed David away from his ear. "Okay," he said, at a normal volume. 

 

"You couldn't make eggs this morning," David slurred."But you can now. I did something."

 

"Yeah Dave," he said, "You're a regular Anne Sullivan."

 

David wrinkled his brow. "Anne who? Does she work for Kloppman too? Oh--oh no Spot!" David picked up his phone and his eyes bugged out. "It's late! We should go to bed!”

 

Spot looked up and pointed to where Blink was teaching Swifty some weird dance move and Mush was jumping up and down singing along to the music. Jack was curled up on the couch with his phone plugged in, texting and laughing. Their coffee table was covered with empty bottles and Spot was sitting on the floor with David like he was six and he wasn’t even properly drunk.

 

“You going to kick them out?” Spot asked, thinking of their locked bedroom door and the pushed together beds behind it.

 

“I don’t want to be rude!”

 

The apartment was hot and starting to smell.

 

“I’ll kick them out,” Spot offered. “I don’t care what people think of me.”

 

David laughed his sarcastic laugh and lolled against Spot’s shoulder. Spot quickly looked around the room to see if anyone noticed before gently lifting David up.

 

“You care so much,” David slurred, “So. Damn. Much.”

 

An aggressive knock came to the door and Jack flinched and looked up from his phone. Blink and Swifty stopped dancing.

 

“It’s Skittery,” Blink said, “fuck.”

 

Spot got up. He wasn’t going to let this asshole end the party for him. He crossed the three steps to the door and opened it and took a step outside before shutting it behind him, forcing Skittery to stumble back. He was dressed for bed—which Spot figured was fair since it was two in the morning—in a dust blue hoodie with sweatpants. Spot had noticed no matter what the occasion, Skittery wore the same hoodie, like he was a cartoon character.

 

“What?” he snapped.

 

Skittery glared at him. “Your apartment is violating the noise policy.”

 

“This ain’t a dorm, there ain’t no noise policy.”

 

“This is a residence of the university and it follows University policies.”

 

“Jesus Skittery,” Spot said, “Don’t you ever get tired of being a fucking buzzkill?”

 

“I don’t know Spot,” Skittery said, “Don’t you ever get tired of being the program asshole?”

 

Spot raised his eyebrows and nodded his head to the door behind him. “See in there? Those people are hanging out with me. They think I’m their friend. What about you? Who’s the real asshole?”

 

Skittery grit his teeth and looked above Spot’s head. “You people,” he said, “have been blasting music and getting drunk all year. It’s intolerable. The smell. The sounds. It makes me feel like my head is going to explode.”

 

“Jesus Christ, you ain’t from the city, are you? That’s life. Life is loud and it smells. You’ve been a fucking downer since the program started.”

 

Skittery took a step back. “Denton pretended this program was all accepting, took people’s shit seriously. I told you assholes on the first day that I have a sensory processing disorder, and all you have done since then is blast music and yell in my face. I bet not a single one of you looked that shit up and figured, ‘hey, maybe it cause Skittery _physical pain_ when I stack cans in the hallway just to knock them over.’”

 

Spot did not remember that. At all. The entire retreat was a blur. Even if he did—

 

Well shit.

 

“Are you saying you expect us to be fucking silent because you can’t buy good noise canceling headphones?” Spot asked.

 

“No,” Skittery snapped, “I just expect you not to be relentless. I need to sleep. I have work in the morning and my skin _hurts_ hearing this come through my walls.”

 

“We’re finishing,” Spot said, “Not for your sake. David and I got work in the morning. We’re celebrating. Jack’s back.”

 

Skittery laughed hysterically. “Oh great. Jack Kelly is on my floor again. I’m never going to sleep.”

 

“Calm down,” Spot said, “We ain’t monsters. I said we was finishing up and we are. So fucking chill. Go back to bed.”

 

Skittery gave him a sour look but retreated into the apartment next door. Spot’s hand had never left the door handle, he opened the door and went inside. The music was already off, and Swifty was pulling on his shoes while Mush finished his beer and Blink unplugged his phone.

 

Mush put down his beer. “Party’s over, right? We all got stuff to do in the morning?”

 

“Yep,” David said, saving Spot from taking a breath. “We better sleep.”

 

“What did Skittery say,” Blink asked as he wound up his phone charger. “He in one of his moods?”

 

“Whatever,” Spot said, “he’s him. He don’t like noise.”

 

“He don’t like anything,” Blink said. “Mushie, you wanna spend the night with Swift?”

 

Mush nodded and slung his arm around Swifty’s shoulder. “Good night, my friends. Thank you for hosting me again.”

 

“You ever going home, Mush?” David asked.

 

“Someday!” Mush sang, “Not today.”

 

Their apartment emptied out and David went into the bedroom to find a pillow and blanket for Jack. Spot started loading the empty bottles into their paper bag for recycling.

 

“Thanks for putting me up, Spot,” Jack said.

 

“It’s David’s doing.”

 

“Yeah,” Jack allowed, “but you and David are a thing now. A unit. I know you could have vetoed this.”

 

Could he have? Would he have?

 

“Whatever,” Spot repeated.

 

“Whatever,” Jack said in a mocking voice. David came out of the bedroom with his own pillow and a blanket that always got kicked to the foot of their bed. While Spot got ready to take a shower he could her Jack and David talking quietly in the living room. By the time he got out, the lights in both rooms were off and David was in bed, using his arm as a pillow. Spot pulled on his hoodie and crawled into bed, gently lifting David’s head and depositing his own pillow underneath.

 

“Nooo,” David drunkenly said, “what about you?”

 

“I’m tough as nails, Jacobs,” Spot said, “I can sleep on rocks. I would never let your head go without a pillow.”

 

“Hmmm,” David said, “You’re nice.”

 

“I’m not—“

 

“I love you.”

 

Spot froze. They were the words of a sleeping drunk man. It didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t mean anything. It wasn’t allowed to mean anything. David’s eyes were closed and he was _drunk._ He was drunk It didn’t mean anything.

 

“What?” Spot demanded. “David, what?”

 

But David was asleep.


	7. Said and Unsaid

Before he opened his eyes David knew he was hung-over.

 

His head felt pinched and staticy and his mouth was dry and _stank._

 

The sheets were sweaty and tangled around his leg. He squinted in the dark room and groped around the bed he already knew was empty. It almost always was when David woke up.

 

He made a small whining sound when he sat up. The phone screen was overbright when it told him that it was 6:58 and his alarm would go off in two minutes. That meant that Spot was in the living room, probably eating candy, probably with wet hair and his t-shirt clinging to his skin and probably—

 

Except Jack was in the living room, so he couldn’t drag Spot to the couch and climb on top of him.

 

David got dressed because they had company, finding which of his three internship shirts was least wrinkled and offensive. When they got paid on Friday he would have to buy new shirts. Denton hadn’t said anything, but he wouldn’t.

 

In the living room, the shades were open and Jack was on the floor in his pajamas doing sit-ups. “Hey David,” he said, not stopping. “You got anything to eat besides bread?”

 

David looked around the tiny room, unsurprised that Spot was not hiding in one of the corners. “We have eggs,” he said absently, “Did you see Spot?”

 

“Uh, yeah,” Jack said, lying back on his elbows, “Asshole took a forty-five minute shower and slammed the door on his way out at like, four in the morning. It was still dark outside, Dave. He’s insane.”

 

David snorted. “Do you want scrambled eggs?”

 

Jack grinned and stood up. “Oh hell yeah David, sounds fantastic.”

 

David texted Spot to see if he wanted to come to the union for lunch but got no response. Which was weird. He also wasn’t home when David got home at six and neither was Jack.

 

His family tried to Skype him, but David wasn’t in the mood. They could talk to Sarah if they needed help with something.

 

It was when Spot didn’t show up for dinner—microwave broccoli with cheese that Jack devoured—or respond to his texts afterward that David started to get worried. Finally, at around nine he texted back.

 

_with Blink. back soon._

“Did I say something stupid or something?” David asked Jack, who was lying on the couch making faces into his Snapchat. “When I was drunk?”

 

Jack laughed. “You black out David?”

 

“I think so?” David said, “I don’t really remember much after we did the rum shots.

 

“I thought you’d built up more stamina than that,” Jack said.

 

“Excuse me for not being a professional yet,” David said, “Seriously. What was I like last night?”

 

Jack sat up and shrugged. “You was really lovey. You told me you loved me, you hugged Swifty three times. You was more careful with Spot, but he had to push you off him at one point. So he might be pissy about that.”

 

Oh.

 

Oh shit.

 

“Damn it,” David said.

 

Jack shook his head. “You know,” he said, “I don’t know much about gay culture? But being with someone closeted can’t be that fun. And I don’t get it. Blink is out. Swifty is out. Other guys—why does Spot think he’s so special? Why does he think we’ll care?”

 

“I don’t know,” David said, “But he does. He really does. And I’m not going to be an asshole about it.”

 

“Right,” Jack said, “Because _you’re_ a decent person.”

 

David sighed and sat on the floor. “Did you know he didn’t ask any questions when I asked for money to get you home?”

 

Jack paused. “I’m just saying.”

 

“Please stop,” David said.

 

They watched Jack’s friend’s Netflix on his laptop, and when it got to be one in the morning David couldn’t stay up any later. He shot off more texts to Spot but ultimately went to bed when Spot just replied _there soon._

He woke up when he felt the bed dip. He groped for his phone and found that it was three in the morning.

 

“Dude,” he groaned, “what?”

 

“Go back to sleep,” Spot said.

 

“Will you be here in the morning?” David asked.

 

“Yep,” Spot said, “go to sleep.”

 

Except he wasn’t home in the morning. David even went to Blink and Skittery’s apartment and knocked on the door, hoping that he was there, but Blink just answered the door, blinking blearily.

 

“He weren’t with me last night,” he said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

What was happening? “Where was he then?” David asked.

 

“Don’t know,” Blink said, “he’s your bestie. Why, you worried?”

 

“No,” David said, “sorry to bother you so early in the morning.”

 

He sent more texts to Spot.

 

_It’s 6:30 in the morning. I know you don’t work until 8. Where are you?_

_Tibby’s. Getting breakfast. All we have is bread._

_You didn’t want to wake me?_

_You were asleep._

_Hence “wake”_

_Sorry. I’ll see you tonight._

_You better._

* * *

 

Kloppman wasn’t around much. Which Spot was perfectly fine with. They were the only ones in the English building most days, and Spot had to resist the urge to toe off his shoes and slide down the long waxed hallway. Kloppman wanted him to work in his office, even when he wasn’t around, but Spot found a place in a student lounge and got comfortable there on Thursday.

 

Kloppman came and found him as he was dropping the Spring 1967 journal on his done pile.

 

“You weren’t in my office,” Kloppman said in his old man voice.

 

“It smells like plants,” Spot said, not looking up from his computer screen.

 

Kloppman hummed. “Anything interesting?’ he asked.

 

“What?”  


“Any short stories or poems that stuck out to you?” Kloppman asked.

 

“Nothing too weird,” Spot said, “I think the person who wrote the apple shaped poem was on drugs when they wrote it.”

 

Kloppman picked up the journal Spot had put down and quickly flipped to the poem Spot was talking about, like he knew it by heart, “Hmm. Yes. Perhaps. Have you ever written while on drugs?”

 

Spot looked up quickly at Kloppman, assessing why he had asked. He wasn’t in charge of Spot, he wasn’t a cop. He didn’t have a reason to care. He seemed to be asking for open curiosity.

 

“Never done drugs,” Spot said, “Not an idiot.”

 

Kloppman smiled wistfully. “I have been idiotic in my time,” he lifted a hand, “Not that I endorse it. But you write drunk, I presume.”

 

“Yeah,” Spot admitted, “not—well I had for your class. Once or twice.”

 

“Were you drunk when you wrote your poem?”

 

“Anyway,” Spot said, “I don’t know. Most of this stuff is crap, to be honest.”

 

Kloppman laughed, “And what makes you so confident in your ability to judge the merit of these works?”

 

“I can tell when something sucks,” Spot said, “Half of these are love poems. Love poems suck. They’re all the same.”

 

“Ah. Interesting.”

 

“What?”

 

“You wrote a hell of a love poem for someone who hates them.”

* * *

David had no idea what had happened. He was distracted all through work, spending over half an hour on some applications. Denton noticed, of course. He came out to the middle room where David was working on his laptop on the couch. Medda was in her office talking loudly on the phone, and Denton came out to tell him that he had ordered pizza for lunch.

 

David just nodded.

 

“David,” he said, “what’s going on?”

 

It was ridiculous that he was upset that his boyfriend was avoiding him. Not to mention that he couldn’t even tell Denton that Spot was his boyfriend. Not that he wanted to. Especially when there were more pressing things going on.

 

“I don’t know what to do with this essay,” David said, “this person wishes they could turn spinach into candy. That’s it. That’s all they said. Their interruption in education was a car crash that hospitalized them for six weeks. But their activities are impressive, they were student council president and—“

 

“What is your gut telling you?” Denton asked.

 

“Their points are above the cut-off, but that essay. I don’t know.”

 

Denton sat down on one of the cushy chairs across from the couch. “We’ve talked about this. If there is an application you are unsure about, you can include it in the second round. That’s just one more to review in the fall, and then it will be my decision and the board’s. But you have to get comfortable cutting more. This scholarship isn’t for everyone.”

 

“I know,” David said, “I wish it was.”

 

“I do too,” Denton said, “I wish everyone had an equal shot at college. But they don’t. We’re trying to change that, forty men at a time. But it isn’t a perfect system.”

 

David nodded and returned to his laptop. Denton waved to get his attention.

 

“Is that it?” he asked.

 

“Is that not enough?” David said.

 

“It is,” Denton said, “but you’ve been having trouble with this since Friday. I wasn’t sure if something else was going on.”

 

David closed his laptop. “I thought this was a professional relationship,” he said.

 

“It is,” Denton said, “professional relationships can involve personal discussions, especially when personal things are impacting the work.”

 

David felt his face heat. “I’m doing the work,” he said.

 

“Of course you are,” Denton rushed. “I just want you to know. I’m still your advisor. You can talk to me if something is going on.”

 

“Thanks,” David said, “I’ll keep that in mind.” He opened his laptop and marked the application “Accepted.”

 

Denton nodded and stood. “Pizza will be here in ten.”

 

“I packed a lunch,” David said.

 

Denton stopped in his doorway, then chuckled a little. “Okay, David,” he said, “okay.”

  

* * *

 

 

Spot walked until his feet hurt. He stopped for coffee and noticed that sole of his left shoe was worn down to showing the internal fibers. So he stopped into a shoe store and bought new shoes, then dumped the old ones into a garbage can.

 

Texts from David came pouring in, along with one from Blink saying that David had stopped by looking for him.

 

_It is seven PM. It’s tonight. You said you would be here tonight._

Spot didn’t respond. Ten minutes later the next text came in.

 

_I’m not going to chase after you._

Spot texted back, _on my way_

He couldn’t avoid David forever.

Well he could.

 

He didn’t know Manhattan as well as he knew Brooklyn, but he could still make his way and kill time from before the sun came up through the middle of the night. He walked until his phone died, and charged it in cafes with free refills then kept walking. His legs burned and the skin on his forehead itched but at least he didn’t have to deal with David—

 

David what?

 

Panicking? Taking it back?

 

Meaning it?

 

Spot didn’t know which was more annoying.

 

Spot knew, in theory, that this might be something he would talk to a friend about if he was something else that was built differently and by different people. He was pretty sure he was friends with Racetrack, but they hadn’t talked except to negotiate Netflix access in weeks. Blink thought they were friends, but Blink didn’t know, couldn’t know. And Boots was a kid, not to mention he was the _last_ person who could know.

 

He grit his teeth as he walked the forty-five minutes back to Badger Building, his new shoes rubbing on his ankles as he walked. On the sidewalk outside of the building, Skittery was smoking like he was in some kind of race.

 

He said something to Spot as he walked by, but Spot didn’t stop. He took the stairs two at a time and was panting for breath when he got to their floor. He only got one of the locks unlocked before he heard the last two slide open and David threw the door open.

 

Spot barely had to look at him to know he was pissed.

 

“Oh,” he said lightly, “so you are alive.”

 

Spot stepped past him into the living room. No sign of Jack, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t in the bathroom or the bedroom, so he stepped back when David stepped towards him.

 

“I’m not going to kiss you,” David said, raising his eyebrows. “First of all, I wouldn’t if Jack was here, which he’s not. Second of all, I’m currently pissed at you.”

 

“Pissed at me?” Spot asked, “For what?”

 

“Um, for dodging and lying to me?” David said. “You weirdo.”

 

Right. Like Spot was the weird one. Like Spot was the one who went around slurring that he loved people.

 

“I’m here now,” Spot said. “What, did you make pasta bake and no one was here to eat it? What could have happened in the last two days that you needed me here for?”

 

David made an aggravated sound. “Spot. God, it’s annoying that you don’t have a long name I can whip out when I’m pissed at you. Listen. We are a thing. We—you and I—are a thing together. That means we do things together. That means we operate together. That means you don’t disappear for two days and lie to me about where you are.”

 

Spot’s eyes narrowed. He stepped back, moving into the kitchen and grabbing a beer out of the fridge so David wouldn’t see on his face if he looked at pissed as he felt. By the time he had a reassuringly familiar beer in his hand and he was standing upright again, he was almost sure his face was schooled to neutral.

 

“What?” David asked.

 

Evidently not.

 

“We never signed some sort of contract that we have to talk every day,” Spot said, “I like you and all, but that doesn’t mean I want to spend every minute of the day with you.”

 

David looked like he’d been slapped in the face. He blinked rapidly and looked to the side like he was trying to gather himself. Spot tried not to feel like a piece of shit. But he knew he wasn’t wrong, even if he was lying. He wanted to spend every minute of the day with David, most days. It was so much better than being alone. But what else was he supposed to say? _You told me you loved me and it is the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me._

Spot shook his head. His brain was doing stupid things and it wasn’t helping. He was fine. He wasn’t scared. He wasn’t even in the realm of scared. This wasn’t scary. David wasn’t scary. He refused to be intimidated.

 

“Well fuck, Spot,” David said, “I didn’t realize I was cramping your style.”

 

“You’re not,” Spot sighed, “I’m not—just. One day. One day we didn’t talk. That’s it. That don’t mean I wanna break up or nothing.”

 

David nodded tightly. “I guess—I don’t know. I’m just used to being with the people I care about. You know—one bedroom apartment for my five person family? Living with Jack? Living with you? I just went into withdrawal a little.”

 

“You can’t go into withdrawal from someone. You can’t be addicted to a person.”

 

“Oh yeah?” David asked, “You learn that from writing papers?”

 

“You mocking me?” Spot snarled.

 

David rolled his eyes, “Oh my god you are so difficult to talk to.”

 

“Newsflash asshole, I’ve been difficult to talk to since I was born.”

 

With a scoff, David sat down on the couch. Spot stayed standing, arms crossed over his stomach. “Look. Jack said I was acting really affectionate on Tuesday. He said you felt like—that you pushed me off you? And I don’t really care if you pushed me because I would remember if you like pushed me pushed me, but if I was acting too affectionate. I’m sorry. I don’t remember it.”

 

Cool relief flooded down Spot’s arms and into the tips of his fingers.

 

David didn’t remember.

 

He might as well have not said it.

 

“You don’t remember,” Spot repeated.

 

“I don’t remember,” David said, “So if I tried to kiss you, or I—“

 

“You said something monumentally stupid,” Spot said, “but you didn’t mean it.”

 

David looked pained. “Oh shit. Was I mean to you?”

 

“Mean to me? You think you’re capable of being mean to me?”

 

“I don’t know!” David said, “You’re obviously very upset so—”

 

“It’s fine,” Spot said, feeling like a six-year-old for avoiding David for something that wasn’t even real. He could have been hanging out with David for the past two days instead of walking around until he wore through his shoes. “You didn’t mean it.”

 

“What did I say?”

 

“You didn’t mean it,” Spot stressed.

 

“Oh God. What did I say? Did I call you pet names in front of people?”

 

“You don’t call me pet names in private,” Spot pointed out, “You just—said something stupid. I don’t want to embarrass you?”

 

The tips of David’s ears turned red. “I’d be embarrassed if you told me?”

 

“Seriously embarrassed,” Spot said, glad that they were getting to the point where David was finally giving up. “Can we just move on?”

 

“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me? The embarrassing thing I said?”

 

“No,” Spot lied, “I just needed some space.” Then an easy explanation came to mind. “From Jack. From this place being crowded.” An even easier way to get out of this conversation came to mind. “It just reminds me too much of like, tiptoeing around assholes in foster homes? Tons of people in one place? It’s not fun.”

 

A sickeningly sympathetic expression came over David’s face and he knew it had landed. He only kind of felt like an asshole over it.

 

“But Jack isn’t an asshole, he’s our friend.”

 

“He’s your friend,” Spot corrected, “And with him here I can’t wake up like I normally do and work in the living room.”

 

“I’m not willing to kick him out, Spot,” David said, “Mushie is staying with Swifty for the rest of the week, and Jack would be crazy insulted. Isn’t the fact that it’s us enough to differentiate it from a foster home? And also, you don’t have to sneak into the living room when you wake up. You can work on your laptop in our room. You know I’m a heavy sleeper.”

 

“I need the lights on,” Spot said. His sob story was already unraveling—there could be actual foster kids in their apartment and it wouldn’t be like his old foster homes because David was there.

 

David waved his hand. “Turn the lights on. I don’t care. Just tell me next time you have a problem, okay? Damn.”

 

“I’m not used to people wanting to fix things for me,” Spot said.

 

It was the first thing he’d said in the conversation that wasn’t a lie.

 

"You try to fix things for me," David said, "why wouldn't I for you?"

 

"I'm just not used to it," Spot repeated.

 

"Well get used to it," David said, "Get used to me. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello did you forget about me? I've been very sick so this chapter is overdue and short but I hope you enjoyed it anyway! 
> 
>  [Come visit me on tumblr, say hi when you do!](http://rudeflower.tumblr.com)


	8. Buzz

They found out that Badger Building has a building wide fire alarm system at two in the morning.

 

Or rather, Spot did.

 

David almost slept through it.

 

“Wake up,” Spot’s voice filtered through his sleep, along with a sharp shove on his shoulder. “Wake the fuck up!”

 

David blinked and sat up in the pitch dark of their room. He heard rustling and the light came on, illuminating their mismatched sheets and the clothes on the floor. David groaned and sat up. It was only then that he heard the wailing fire alarm.

 

“What?” he asked.

 

“Some idiot probably burned their popcorn,” Spot said.

 

Fire. A fire was happening!

 

“We need to evacuate!” David said, speaking loudly to be heard over the ringing fire alarm.

 

“No,” Spot said, “There’s not a fire. We need to leave because it’s fucking loud, not because we’re in danger.”

 

David jumped up and pulled on some pants from the floor. He found a shirt—any shirt—and let Spot pull it out of his hands and replace it with his own shirt.

 

“Tibby’s?” Spot asked, pulling on the shirt he’d taken out of David’s hands. It was great and worn out with white thread by the seams.

 

“It might blow over soon,” David said as they walked out of the apartment, grabbing keys and wallets as they went. Jack had been gone for two days—or across the hall actually, with Swifty—but they had seen him only two hours before when they had a party in their apartment, the remains of which were scattered in the dark as they walked through.

 

In the hall they ran into a bunch of randoms they’d never seen before, as well as the other guys. David didn’t need to discover that the elevators were off, without thinking he grabbed Spot’s wrist and led him to the stairwell. It wasn’t until they were on the third floor, buffeted by strangers and friends, that Spot shrugged him off.

 

On the street half of Badger Building was crowded on the sidewalk, wearing pajamas and squinting up at the building. David looked up and saw that all the lights were on and many windows were framing people looking down into the street.

 

“How d’ya think they’re able to stay with that racket?” Kid Blink asked. “I might never go inside again.” Swifty yawned and nodded in agreement.

 

“Tibby’s?” David asked by way of an answer.

 

“Oh you know it,” Jack jumped in. He was wearing the same clothes he’d left the apartment in, and Skittery hovered a few feet behind him.

 

Spot squinted at Skittery and barked out, “You coming?”

 

Skittery glared at him and David knew that his own face showed surprise. Not just that Spot was showing interest in Skittery, but that he was showing interest in _anyone._

“Whatever,” Skittery mumbled, but he followed along as they wove through the Badger Building residents and walked north to Tibby’s.

 

They’d been there at this hour before, but David hadn’t ever been there with the amount of money that they had. His first paycheck had come three days ago—containing a _comma_ for the first time in his life. He waited the past three days for his parents to call, nervous, asking, regretful. But instead, all that came were requests to Skype on their new WiFi, paid for by Sarah, to be told stories about his mom’s new job.

 

He wasn’t resentful that his parents didn’t ask for his money.

 

That would be insane.

 

He thought of his bank account—with a _comma_ —as they walked into Tibby’s. He could buy a burger if he wanted. He could buy thirty. If he wanted.

 

Jack led them to their corner booth and took up his spot in the corner. The rest of them filled in, Skittery and Spot sitting on opposite outside seats. David sat between Swifty and Spot, his mind racing at the server headed their way.

 

Should he order food? Would people make fun of him? What if his mom needed money for the electric bill tomorrow and he spent $7.68 on a cheeseburger so now he—

 

He would still have enough money for any electric bill if he—

 

Could he?

 

Spot leaned over and murmured, “You dying over there?”

 

“I think I’m going to order food,” David whispered.

 

Spot raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment, and neither did anyone else when David ordered a Portobello mushroom burger with a baked potato on the side. Instead of a stunned silence, or series of jibes, they just jockeyed for the server’s attention, impatient for their turns to order.

 

Spot didn’t order anything, just asked the server, “Did you start carrying liquor?”

 

The server raised their pierced eyebrows and said, “You pull some strings and got us a liquor license?” the exchange practiced and routine.

 

“I’m trying,” Spot said, “I honestly am.”

 

David wished Spot had ordered something so he’d feel less decadent for having ordered something himself, but it helped that Blink had ordered half the menu and spread the dishes out in the center of the table when they came. Jack took food off the plates without being told to. David knew that Blink had a well-paying internship at a graphic design firm and that the money was burning a hole in his pocket.

 

He wondered if he was supposed to share his burger and baked potato. There didn’t seem to be a practical way to. He should have ordered fries or something that Spot could pick off his plate. That’s what everyone else did for him.

 

Of course, no one commented on any of it, any of what David was anxious over, so he took a bite of his burger. Then another. Skittery threw up an arm as though he thought Swifty was going to ask for some of his chili fries, while really Swifty was entering calories for his turkey wrap into his phone. Jack waved a half-eaten chicken finger around as he told a story.

 

“Okay,” he projects, “So there’s this twenty-four hour diner in Santa Fe, right? And I’m always going there with my friend Javier because his sister works there right, and she gives us a deal. And we don’t even need it, really, because they’ve got bottomless fries. Seriously. Bottomless fries. What are these people, financial idiots? They got no brains. I could put away twenty plates of fries. Of course, I never do, cause I got places to be, things to do. But then, right, they _fire_ Javier’s sister, Amanda, right? And I’m like oh _fuck that_ I’m taking full advantage of their policy. So—and this was before I had a laptop or a phone so I have fuck all to do except read—I show up at 1 AM and order a coke and a plate of bottomless fries. And I just stay there, till 1 AM the next morning.”

 

Skittery let out a startled laugh, which prompted everyone else to start laughing.

 

“Oh damn,” Blink laughed, “You gonna do that at Tibby’s next?”

 

Jack held a hand to his heart, “I never would,” Jack said, “I loves Tibby’s.”

 

Under the table, Spot occasionally ran the back of his hand over David’s leg. He didn’t seem to notice he was doing it, he spent most of their middle of the night meal leaned over David so he could talk to Blink. But it wasn’t in David’s imagination.

 

Testing a theory, the next time Spot touched him, David dropped his hand below the table and took Spot’s hand in his. In his peripheral vision he saw Spot freeze, but he squeezed David’s hand back before pulling away.

 

David wasn’t even tired. His phone told him it was coming up on three in the morning, but as he watched his friends demolish plates of food and felt Spot quietly leaning against him, he felt alert and buzzing for something more to do. When Jack pronounced that Badger Building was probably fine now, they got their checks but David stopped Spot outside Tibby’s with a hand on his elbow.

 

“You ever been to Times Square?” he asked.

 

Spot raised his eyebrows. “It’s three in the morning. You got Denty tomorrow.”

 

David shrugged. “I don’t know. You’d be awake an hour from now anyway. I can afford one all-nighter.”

 

Spot looked over his shoulder at the group, chatting outside in the yellow light shining out from Tibby’s. “We inviting them?”

 

“I was thinking just us?”

 

Spot gave a quiet smile, “Yeah,” he said, “yeah okay.”

 

On the subway, David realized Spot was wearing sweatpants and was holding his wallet, which seemed dangerous. He pointed that out, and Spot just laughed. “You think someone is going to roll me?” he asked.

 

“Fair point,” David conceded. “You never answered. Have you been to Times Square before?”

 

Spot looked around the subway, as though the answer might matter to any of the sleepy passengers, and shook his head. “I ain’t done any of the touristy Manhattan crap except the stuff you like.”

 

“Like Central Park,” David said, pleased.

 

“And the museums, and the movie in the park—“

 

“The movie was your idea,” David pointed out.

 

Spot rolled his eyes. “Why ain’t you been? I’da thought you’d done this with Jack already.”

 

“Nope,” David said, “I know he went, early on, but I was afraid of getting robbed or something.”

 

“You probably didn’t even have a cell phone back then, or any money,” Spot said, “why aren’t you worried now that you do?”

 

_Because I have you, asshole._

David shrugged.

 

They used Google maps to find the subway stop to get off on but didn’t need it to find Times Square itself. The light spilled down the street and as they walked the blindingly white screens got increasingly bigger until they were pressed together in the center of it all.

 

The sound was one long note of thousands of people talking and laughing. There were vendors shouting for attention, and people in cartoon costumes walking backward trying to get tourists attention. The light was brighter than daylight, somehow, white and blue and red and lighting up Spot’s face without any visible shadows.

 

It struck David that because they’d left in such a hurry, neither of them had their headphones, which meant Spot wasn’t tuning it out right now. He was experiencing it along with David—the people, the lights, the smells. They were standing at the center of it all, wrists pressed against on another, staring up at the screens.

 

“Jesus Christ,” Spot yelled.

 

David agreed.

 

“Before 1904 it was called Longacre Square,” David offered, trying to keep his voice from a shout, “The name came from the Times office being moved here.”

 

“I love when your obsession with shit that happened here over 110 years ago pops up,” Spot yelled. “Seriously, I can’t believe this is your first time here. It’s probably full of fucking history.”

 

“I can’t believe it’s yours! So many tourists to steal from!”

 

That got them a sideways look from a group of women standing next to them, and Spot grinned when they shuffled further away. “Never came to Manhattan when I could help it,” Spot said.

 

David nodded. The lights from the screens felt like they were tattooed into his mind, they were still there when he closed his eyes and felt the heat of Spot’s arm pressed against his. Suddenly Spot grabbed his wrist and pointed.

 

“Wanna take our picture with Sully?” he asked, unmasked excitement in his voice.

 

David looked over and saw the blue monster from Monster’s Inc through the crowd. David laughed sharply and Spot looked at him, mutinous.

 

“I’m doing it with or without you,” Spot said seriously.

 

Oh god, it wasn’t a joke.

 

“No, I’ll do it!” David said, “We just need cash.”

 

“I have cash,” Spot said, dragging David by the wrist against the push of the crowd. David felt some disgust when they got to the blue monster—his mask was grotesquely cartoonish and his blue fur was matted, but Spot just jumped twice and thrust a twenty at him. He positioned David on the other side of the monster and hurriedly took out his phone. When the monster moved to put his arm around Spot, he _didn’t_ shove him and he _didn’t_ make a comment about not being weird, he just grinned and let it happen and David was too stunned by his boyfriend letting a monster touch him in public but not _him_ to stop the monster from doing the same to him.

 

Spot took approximately forty photos—something he had never done with David—before deciding it was enough. It was only when the monster held out his arms for a hug that Spot stepped back and walked away without saying goodbye to the beloved character.

 

When they got out and onto a quiet street, David said something.

 

“You really love the blue monster.”

 

“Sully,” Spot corrected.

 

“Sully,” David allowed, “Like. Really love him.”

 

Spot tilted his head and unlocked his phone, swiping through the photos he’d taken as they walked slowly along with the crowd on the sidewalk. “Yeah,” he said, “I really liked that movie when I was little.”

 

“Did you watch it a lot, or…” David fished. Desperate for something, something extra to provide more context for the weirdness that just happened.

 

“My parents didn’t have money for daycare,” Spot said, still scrolling through the photos. “They had a DVD player though, and the only DVD they owned that wasn’t a fucking romantic comedy was Monster’s Inc. I just watched it on repeat until they got home or the power got shut off. Whichever came first.”

 

David stopped walking, and it only took a few steps for Spot to notice he wasn’t with him and turn around. “What?” he asked from a few feet away.

 

“Is that true?” David asked.

 

Spot rolled his eyes. “No David,” he said in a flat tone that David wasn’t sure came from exasperation or sarcasm, “That’s the kind of shit that gets you put in foster care. That _never_ happened to me. That’s why I’m so fucking well adjusted and good at talking to people.”

 

“I can’t tell if you’re joking or not,” David said.

 

“I’m joking,” Spot said, “of course I’m joking. Now can you please fucking keep moving so we don’t get trampled to death by this fucking crowd?”

 

David had to admit he’d been jostled more in the last minute than he had all night, so he stepped forward at Spot threw up his hands as though to say “fucking finally” and led them to the subway stop.

 

The sun was starting to come up, filtering in with the lights of Times Square, and as they passed apartment buildings David noted people coming out in jogging outfits and with dogs on leashes.

 

While they waited for the subway, David took out his phone to google what was open in their neighborhood. “I don’t feel like going home,” he said, “Where do you go when you wake up this early and abandon me?”

 

“I don’t _abandon you,_ ” Spot said. “I go to Tibby’s, or I just walk around.”

 

“Want to do that when we get back?”

 

“Go to Tibby’s for the third time in twenty-four hours?”

 

“Walk around,” David said.

 

Spot craned his head towards the entrance of the subway track, looking for the spotlight from the subway. “We could just walk home,” Spot said.

 

“That’s like two an a half miles!”

 

“I thought you wanted to walk?” Spot countered.

 

David couldn’t think of a good reason to go against it, now that he thought about it. They didn’t pay for their subway passes, so it wasn’t like money was lost, and he’d walked that far before he had a good handle on the subway system. So without a word, he walked back up the steps to the street and Spot followed him.

 

The walked down Broadway which was alternately thick with people and nearly deserted. The first Dunkin Donuts they saw, Spot went inside and ordered two large black coffees, which David gratefully accepted. They were silent as they walked, slower than usual, until an hour later they were outside Badger Building.

 

It was five in the morning by then and the sun was up with seeming permanence. David hesitated at the electric door with his fob in the air, ready to buzz them in.

 

“This was so good,” he said, “I don’t want to go back to the way things were.”

 

Spot went to use his own fob to let them in, but David stopped him. “Back to what, exactly?” Spot asked.

 

“We’re boyfriends,” David said, “We’re in a relationship. We’re not just roommates who sometimes fool around. I know it’s a secret, I know that. I know what I signed up for. But we have to make an effort to not just snipe at each other and make toast. We have to do this more often.”

 

“We have to stay up all night and go to the tackiest place on earth?” Spot asked.

 

“That’s exactly what I mean,” David said, “I need you to take this seriously.”

 

Spot shifted on his feet. “I am,” he said, “Okay. More…boyfriend stuff. Less fighting.”

 

"Because I really like spending time with you when you're in a good mood, but I need to like spending time with you, like, more often."

 

Spot furrowed his brow. "Okay?" he said. "I'll. Yeah. I know what you mean."

 

"You do?" 

 

"Yeah."

 

"Okay good. And I'll work on being less um, stressed? How I get. You know."

 

Spot nodded. "Can we go inside now?"

 

David smiled and reached out and squeezed Spot's wrist. He buzzed them in, and they took the elevator the rest of the way home.

 

 

 


	9. With a Capital A

The night of the fire alarm they got home two hours before Spot had to leave for work, and two and a half hours before David did.

 

“Sleep,” David said.

 

“I thought you were pulling an all-nighter,” Spot said.

 

“If we sleep for an hour and a half we’ll get a full REM cycle,” David continued, “And be must more refreshed and ready for the day.”

 

“That’s so lame,” Spot said, “I don’t want to sleep.”

 

David shrugged and pulled him into their bedroom. “Then lie in bed with me and play on your phone.”

 

That he could do. But David didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to talk. He shed his jeans but kept his shirt on, and Spot got in bed with his sweatpants, putting his wallet on the side table.

 

“Ugh,” Spot said, “We’re getting Times Square germs all over our bed.”

 

“We’ll wash the sheets,” David said, “It won’t kill us.”

 

“Says you,” Spot groused.

 

“I know I gave you crap for not having been to Times Square before,” he whispered in the dark of their room. Without a window, nothing came in but the faint light through the murky glass at the top of their walls that led into the dimly lit living room. Spot could barely see David two inches from him, but he saw enough to squirm down and put his head on David’s shoulder.

 

David wrapped an arm around him. “But I haven’t done things in Chicago, either,” he continued, “I have never seen the Bean. Not even on a school trip. And I’ve never seen The Christmas Carol, or been to the Christmas Market downtown.”

 

“Two of those are Christian things,” Spot pointed out.

 

“Still,” David said, “I haven’t done them. Maybe that’s why I’m so into doing touristy things here? Like, millions of people do them for a reason. Times Square was kind of amazing.”

 

Spot shifted so his mouth wasn’t pressing into David’s arm. “It was,” he agreed. “I like doing these things with you, you know.” Exhaustion made it easier to talk. “You get so excited. I can’t get that excited about things, but you can. It’s almost like they’re my feelings, you know?”  


“Yeah,” David said, “I think I get that.”

 

They were silent for a little while then David said, “I’m making a lot of money.”

 

Spot laughed. “You don’t have to brag.” He had next to no income coming in from Quick Papers, but Kloppman was paying well. Still, with David not sending money home, it was the first time in their relationship that things were closer to equal.

 

“I’m not,” David said quickly, “But I think I can afford four bus tickets. Two to Chicago and two home.”

 

Spot squinted against David and sighed. “Just two,” he said, “Just get two.”

 

“Think about it?” David requested.

 

“I will,” Spot lied, then pretended to fall asleep.

 

*****

 

 

There wasn’t much to clean in their apartment, but Spot was cleaning anyway.

 

He knew they had carpeted floors so he should probably vacuum, but he didn’t have a vacuum so he settled for getting on his hands and knees and picking up the crud that had accumulated in their mangy carpets over the month they’d been living in Badger Building.

 

David came home from work as he was finishing up the space by the couch.

 

“Damn,” David said, “Look at that ass.”

 

Spot sat up and spun around. “Stop,” he said, “Don’t talk that way when Aunt Elane gets here.”

 

David breezed into the apartment in the way only David could, shedding his messenger back onto the floor and unbuttoning the top buttons of his shirt. He stepped toward the kitchen, stuck his head in and laughed. “You did all the dishes?”

 

“I did all the dishes,” Spot agreed. “You need to put your bag away, it’s not okay for it to be in the middle of everything.”

 

Eyebrows raised, David walked over to his bag and stuck it in their empty closet. “Did you get this weird when Aunt Elane and Boots came to the dorm when I was gone?”

 

“No,” Spot admitted, “But I broke my arm being an idiot that time, so it’s damn unlikely that she’s doing this again. If we do this right, Boots will be allowed to come over. Which will save me a thousand hours on the subway. So. Put your shit away.”

 

“You admit the sliding on the floor was a mistake?”

 

“Stop,” Spot repeated. “They’re going to be here any minute. Button up your shirt again, she’ll like that.”

 

David shot him a dubious look. Spot was wearing one of his black shirts with cut off sleeves and a flannel around his waist, but Aunt Elane already _knew_ what Spot looked like. David could still impress her. Without a word, David buttoned up his shirt, just in time for Spot’s phone to go off.

 

Aunt Elane never specified that she was bringing Boots with her, but Spot was still taken aback when she was the only one on the sidewalk outside Badger Building.

 

“Where’s—“ Spot started, looking around.

 

Aunt Elane stepped past him into the building. “He is at a friend’s house,” she said, “He can come over another time, if things are in order.”

 

Spot scowled. “What do you expect? A drug den?”

 

Aunt Elane didn’t answer, just pushed the elevator button on her own like she was the one who lived there. When they got in the elevator Spot jabbed the button for the seventh floor to make it clear that this was _his_ turf and he was the one who lived here.

 

On the seventh floor, Aunt Elane sniffed pointedly. Cigarettes. Fuck Skittery.

 

“Not mine,” Spot said quickly. Too quickly. “Someone else's. This jerk who lives next store to us. It’s a smoke-free building.”

 

Aunt Elane nodded tightly and Spot led her into their apartment.

 

David was sitting on the couch, already on his laptop, in his buttoned-up shirt. He smiled generously at the sight of them, then pulled back. “Where’s Boots?” he asked.

 

“Great question,” Spot said.

 

Aunt Elane said that Boots was at a friend’s and left out the bit about this being a test.

 

Spot tried to see this apartment from Aunt Elane’s point of view. It was still small, living there hadn’t expanded Spot’s perspective on the tiny room with the squared off kitchen. Their recycling bin was empty of empties thanks to Spot running down the hall and pouring them down the chute half an hour ago. There was a stack of discarded books that David had gotten from the library the other day. There was a blanket on the couch that Spot had put there because it seemed like something Aunt Elane would like. He had tried to make it as clean as possible, but it still had a worn-in dingy tone that Spot couldn’t get rid of.

 

It was empty. No posters. No TV. It was kind of sad.

 

“Clean,” Aunt Elane remarked. She stepped in and Spot’s mind quickly recalled exactly how many times he checked that the bedroom door was locked. Aunt Elane looked in the kitchen and nodded appreciatively at their toaster. Spot followed her as he checked the bathroom and found their towels hanging up and separate. Then she turned and stopped in front of the bedroom door.

 

“This is the bedroom?” she asked.

 

Spot couldn’t breathe.

 

What if he hadn’t locked the door? What if she walked in? He would never be allowed to see Boots again.

 

“This room is irrelevant,” she said like there was no question about it.

 

“Yeah, fucking obviously,” Spot said.

 

Aunt Elane gave him a sharp look. Which Spot knew was because of his language, but it wasn’t like _looking_ at him a certain way would make it so that the words were taken back. There was not taking back words that were already said.

 

They stepped back into the living room. David was in the kitchen and emerged with an armful of apples and a sleeve of crackers.

 

“Mrs. Arbus, I’m sorry we don’t have any coffee or snacks really, but we have really good ice, and I can cut up some apples.”

 

Aunt Elane beamed at David and held up her hands in a gentle dismissal. She loved David. She had since Spot brought him around over winter break in a breakneck attempt to give David the closest thing he had to family. An old woman who detested him, and a kid who was—rightly—moving further to normalcy and further from Spot as a result. David was who she wanted around Boots. A college student—a real one—with a spotless record and the ability to hold a clean conversation.

 

Most of the time it bothered Spot more than he wanted to admit. Today he hoped it would help.

 

“I’m going to get a TV,” he said, “So Boots can play his video games when he comes over, or we can watch something. And we have a lot of books,” he points to the stack on the bar, “so he can read. If he wants to. And this is a safe neighborhood. Right? I think it is.”

 

“It is,” David said, looking amused. Looking like Denton, right then.

 

“Yes,” Aunt Elane agreed, “Though B—Isaiah would not be here at night.”

 

“Whatever,” Spot said, managing not to get excited at the fact that Aunt Elane was talking like Boots would be around at all. And that she almost slipped up and called him by his real name.

 

David smiled. “Should we sit?” he asked.

 

Aunt Elane nodded, and she sat down on their couch. After an awkward moment of indecision, Spot sat next to her, sitting on the very edge of the couch, and David pulled over one of the barstools, sitting over them.

 

“David,” Aunt Elane said, “Spot tells me you have an internship with the scholarship. That must be interesting.”

 

David swiveled a bit on the stool and nodded. “It is,” he said, “It’s kind of…”

 

“Intimidating?” Aunt Elane suggested.

 

“Scary,” David added, “Every day I’m turning down people whose entire future would change if we considered them. I don’t know. It’s a lot.”

 

Aunt Elane’s eyebrows pinched together. “That is a lot of responsibility. Especially given your level of experience.”

 

Spot had spent the entire summer telling David he was fully capable of handling this so he was ready to glare at Aunt Elane and blow this whole thing, but David actually slouched a little, looking relieved.

 

“I think so,” he said, “But I’m in it now. So I have to do it.”

 

“Remember,” Aunt Elane, “no matter what you see in the applications, you were chosen for this for a reason. Both of you.”

 

It was nice. Until.

 

“God was looking out for you boys,” she said, “he made sure Denton found you.”

 

David smiled and Spot sucked in a deep breath. His juvie therapist would be so proud of his composure right now.

 

“I think it was actually the internet that brought us to the scholarship,” Spot said, “and our ‘extraordinary qualities.’”

 

“Yes,” Aunt Elane said, “which God blessed you with.”

 

No deep breath was going to cover that shit. He opened his mouth, but David cut him off. 

 

“Anyway,” she said, “has Spot told you about his internship? It’s really cool.”

 

Aunt Elane’s eyebrows shot up. “Your internship?” she asked.

 

“Boots didn’t tell you?”

 

“Isaiah hasn’t told me, no,” she said.

 

Spot hurriedly explained his internship, how he was speed reading through all but a few poems and short stories and enduring Kloppman asking what he thought of them. Aunt Elane looked inappropriately impressed and Spot braced himself for more God talk about how lucky it was that Kloppman even deigned to notice him.

 

She surprised him by saying, “You deserve to have an experience like that.”

 

“No, I don’t,” Spot said automatically.

 

“You don’t think so?” Aunt Elane asked.

 

“He does deserve it,” David agreed.

 

Spot wanted to punch something but he couldn’t so he just sat on his hand.

 

“And you two are living together,” Aunt Elane said, “That is going well?”

 

“Yes,” Spot and David said at the same time. They looked at each other.

 

It was? Wasn’t it? They fought sometimes, but they made dinner together a few nights a week and Spot was getting good at making grilled cheese and they had talks, sometimes, when they were lying in bed at night. Spot had never lived in a real place with someone he actually liked before Race, and with David, there was the added element of thinking every single thing about him was amazing, even the annoying things.

 

“Good,” Aunt Elane said. “I remember when I first moved in with my husband. There’s so much you don’t know until you live with someone. It’s a significant step in the relationship.”

 

All the air disappeared from the room. Spot was ready for the ceiling to collapse on them, for the floor to fall out. He shot David a look that he wasn’t sure the contents of—fear? Anger? Desperation? David just nodded to him somberly and addressed Aunt Elane.

 

“It’s just a friendship,” he said, “We’re not—we’re friends.”

 

“Of course,” Aunt Elane said, “any kind of relationship.”

 

Later Spot apologized. He wasn’t good at apologizing. Wasn’t practiced. But he did. David kept flipping the egg grilled cheese and waved him off.

 

“I get it,” he said, “Aunt Elane is old school, Boots is too important. If there’s anything to apologize for, it’s lying to our _already gay friends._ ”

 

“I’m not apologizing for that,” Spot said, resolute.

 

“Right,” David said. “I already know that about you. But don’t worry about Aunt Elane.”

 

The conversation only made Spot more worried.

 

* * *

 

 

David talked to his family all the time now.

 

Spot didn’t understand why.

 

Not because he didn’t understand why someone whose family loved them and shit would want to talk to them. He wasn’t that deficient. He understood that much. Boots was his brother, and if he had it his way he would talk to him all the fucking time.

 

What was weird was that David was always on edge after he talked to his family.

 

David was in their kitchen, making a list of the things they need to buy at the dollar store. Apparently, they didn’t have enough spoons, which is ridiculous because Spot stole a ton from a diner they were at just two days ago.

 

David always acted fucking weird after he talked to his family.

 

Most of the time he immediately cooked something and forced Spot to learn how to do things like sautéing vegetables (Who the fuck needed that?). Other times he took inventory of their apartment and made lists of what they were missing and how to get it. Then agonized over the idea of spending money.

 

Spot wasn’t sure which one was a bigger problem.

 

“Why do we need spoons?” Spot asked, leaning over the bar that led into their kitchen. David was in his new internship shirt, bought at a thrift store Kid Blink told them about where Spot found absolutely no cool t-shirts. David sheepishly bought three button up’s that mostly fit him, particularly one grey one that fit him _exactly fucking right_.

 

David looked like a journalist, or the step-son of a senator in that shirt. He looked like a secret democrat in the young republican club. With his hair growing out the way it was, curled and dark and his blue eyes—it made Spot’s head go to stupid places.

 

Even now, spinning around their kitchen like a lunatic, David looked damn good in the grey shirt drawn tight over his back.

 

“Hey, you wanna fucking calm down?” Spot asked when David slammed their drawer with the knives and spoons in it closed.

 

“I’m calm,” David said.

 

Spot had stepped on this landmine often enough to know that David had a _thing_ about his parents, a _defensive as hell_ thing. But still, he couldn’t help but say, “You know, you’re always in a weird mood after you talk to them.”

 

He turned around, notebook and pen still in hand, ready to continue his list of ways in which they were failing. “I am not.”

 

“You’re right,” Spot said, “forget it.”

 

David sighed and shifted the notebook under his arm and tucked the pen behind his ear.

 

He looked like a windswept journalist who—

 

He looked fucking hot.

 

“Hey,” he said, “Are you too weird right now to hang out on the couch?”

 

David looked confused then raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, okay?”

 

Spot walked around the bar and into their tiny kitchen. He pulled the notebook out from under David’s arm and grabbed his other arm.

 

The couch was lumpy and unforgiving, but David was not. He was familiar and taut under Spot’s hands, drawn like an athelete—a fancy one, like a tennis one or something. He turned his head when Spot kissed at his neck, allowed himself to be divested of his shirt when Spot started pulling at the buttons.

 

The hickey on David’s shoulder was a rainbow of healing. “Can I?” Spot asked, and David nodded vigorously. Spot mouthed at the skin on his shoulder, making his mark.

 

As always, Spot felt like he was someone else. There was maybe a timeline where this felt natural to him, like something that wasn’t soaked in secrecy or felt slightly criminal, but Spot wasn’t in it. He always felt the way he felt after he stole something, nervous and desperate to run as fast as he could, but knowing if he did it would just make a scene.

 

It seemed to come naturally to David. He kissed Spot’s eyebrows, his ears, the corner of his mouth and never felt like he needed to ask permission. It was when they were too into it that David pulled back, panting for breath as he lay under Spot’s weight.

 

“We could do this on the bed, sometime,” David said, toying with Spot’s hair. It was getting long too, long enough that he could tuck the sides behind his ears if he wanted to look like an idiot. He could get it cut again, but he didn’t want to discourage David touching him like this.

 

Spot closed his eyes and leaned into the touch. “You don’t like the couch?”

 

“Not really?” David said, “I don’t know how Jack slept on it, it’s uncomfortable as all get out. There’re metal bars between the cushions.”

 

Feeling self-conscious, Spot pulled away from David’s touch. “I don’t want to do this on the bed,” he said.

 

As he said it he felt like a straight idiot. What kind of eighteen-year-old didn’t want to fuck his boyfriend? Didn’t want to even let him touch him like this in their shared bed? What kind of eighteen-year-old was filled witha cold fear that almost seemed familiar when he thought of it, but was always a little alien, like it belonged to someone else and had been transplanted into his mind?

 

David nodded to readily. “Okay,” he said, “yeah totally. That’s fine. We won’t then.”

 

Spot sat up quickly and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. David pulled his legs out from under Spot and sat up. “When are you going to get sick of me?” he asked, “I bet Declan let you fuck him.”

 

From the blush that spread over David’s cheeks, Spot learned that he had hit it right on the money. David had had sex before with someone who wasn’t him which meant he wanted to which meant he would—might—want to with Spot which meant he was fucking up he was fucking up.

 

“God,” he said, “And you’re okay with this? You should go back to Chicago and—“

 

David held up a hand. “I know you are about to say something incredibly rude because you’re upset and I’m not going to let you because I don’t want to be mad at you. So let’s start over. I don’t care that you want to take it slow. I do care that you are closeted, but I get that you feel like you need to. I’m hoping we move forward, but I’m not in a big rush and I don’t want to pressure you.”

 

Spot shook his head. “What then? You’re not with me for the sex. You’re not even able to go on normal dates with me. What’s the point?”

 

“ _You’re_ the point,” David said, “You push me to take care of myself and you push me to see the bigger picture and you’re hot as hell, by the way, and—I don’t know Spot. I don’t think you want me to list all the ways you’re great.”

 

Maybe he did. But Spot shook his head, because he knew it expected.

 

“What are you getting out of this?” David asked. “I mean. I’m a weirdo. We all know that. I get all spun up and I don’t know how to handle—“

 

Spot shut David up with a kiss. It wasn’t the most elegant solution, but it was better than saying the words that ran through Spot’s brain when he thought about David. They were dangerous, too soon words that had no business surviving in the light of day.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arbus is Boots' last name on Wikipedia and David wouldn't call Aunt Elane "Aunt Elane" or "Elane" so she needed a last name so


	10. Impostor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the new tags. For detailed content warnings for this chapter please see the end note. Nothing graphic is shown or discussed.

 

Spot woke up on the morning of his nineteenth birthday with a crick in his neck.

 

He’d woken up with worse but it was _annoying._

 

It was dark in their room, as always, and Spot was surprised when he checked his phone and found that it was 7:19. Sleeping in by hours, and almost cutting it close considering he had to be at the English building in just over an hour. He was pretty sure the last time he slept this late was over winter break, when the building was hot and David was new and his brain had to shut down for longer to deal with everything that was happening.

 

Or at least, that was his theory.

 

He walked out into the dark of the living room. There were still empties everywhere from when they’d had Jack and Swifty and Blink over the night before. Somehow their apartment had become the place where people came together at the end of the day. Spot found himself buying more and more beer when he went to the store, and Swifty nervously gave him a twenty every few days, even though he barely drank a thing. Spot took it anyway.

 

David spent the parties drinking slowly and laughing at the stories Jack told while Swifty grinned and pretended to drink. Spot and Blink had started playing Kings on the floor by their one window on a regular basis, and Spot only sometimes gave Blink shift for losing on purpose so he could drink more. They were getting to be almost friends. Almost. Spot still didn’t respond to most of Blink's texts, but he responded to the ones that merited it which were few and far between. But he did.

 

Spot forced himself to limit his shower to twenty minutes—the time approximated from how long the songs in his head lasted—and David was up in the kitchen when he got out.

 

“Hey tiger,” David said, and grinned at him. For a panicked minute Spot thought David had figured out it was his birthday—maybe he peeked at his State ID or asked Boots when Spot was in the bathroom one time? But David was just smiling for David reasons because David smiled sometimes and it was normal. Spot tried to smile back.

 

“That was beautiful,” David said, “Seriously. We should frame a picture of you trying to smile before 10 AM.”

 

The dangerous too soon words ran through Spot’s head and he stomped them down furiously.

 

“Shut up,” Spot said.

 

“You slept! Maybe being nineteen agrees with you?”

 

Fuck.

 

“Who told you?”

 

David just took out a carton of eggs and turned on the electric burner. “Who else but Boots? He texted me ten times to make sure I wouldn’t forget. Seriously. I love that kid.”

 

Spot sat at the bar and watched David make scrambled eggs. “You didn’t like, _plan_ anything did you?”

 

“Um no, except I got you a birthday present. Or didn’t. Depending on how you feel about your birthday. Do you do anything?”

 

Spot wasn’t especially feeling about his birthday at all. Sometimes he was with people who thought it mattered, sometimes he was with people who hated that he existed. On his sixth birthday he was in his first foster home and his foster mother acted like existing for six years was the most important thing that ever happened. She threw a party with balloons and her husband did magic tricks and Spot spent the entire party in his room under the blankets reading. So she brought the green ice cream cake into his bed and didn’t get mad when he stained the sheets.

 

“Sometimes,” Spot said. “Sometimes not. I usually meet up with Boots? Or I’ve tried to, since we got separated.”

 

“What did you when you were together?”

 

“We rented out the Plaza and invited a thousand of my closest friends.”

 

“Seriously.”

 

“Seriously. I don’t like to make a big deal of it? You didn’t tell the guys did you?”

 

“Of course not. I know you better than that.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

David spent all day texting the guys.

 

_Party is OFF. CANCELLED. RESCHEDULE_

They were very upset, especially when he asked them not to tell Spot that they knew it was his birthday. Especially Swifty.

 

_But I bought him a present?_

David had bought him a present too, but he had a right to.

 

_Give it to him on a random Tuesday._

_D:_

Medda breezed through the common area of the office where David was working and smiled. “Texting, huh?”

 

David dropped his phone on the couch. “No,” he said, “yes. Sorry.”

 

Medda shook her head. “Sweetheart, I’ve seen how hard you work. It doesn’t bother me any, and I’m not your supervisor! You’re just fine.”

 

David shook his head and put his phone in his backpack. “I should get back to work.”

 

“If any of my student employees were as dedicated as you were, we wouldn’t need me.”

 

Denton was in his office meeting with a Roosevelter David didn’t know, a senior, probably. Someone living in Badger Building who David had seen a few times but didn’t know the name of. David wore his headphones because Denton’s office wasn’t soundproof and David wasn’t nosy-proof.

 

So he was surprised by Denton tapping him on the shoulder. He jumped and yanked off his headphones.

 

“I was listening to music,” he said, unnecessarily.

 

“Good,” Denton said, “I work better when I listen to music, I think a lot of people do. Come in my office?”

 

David nodded and got up. He didn’t know what it was about, but Denton asked him to come into his office nonstop and it was usually for silly reasons. He didn’t think any different this time until Denton said, “Junior Milton.”

 

His brain instantly recognized the name, and it didn’t take a second longer to recall the application and accompanying essay. The essay above average, but his stellar mock trial record didn’t make up for the probably insurmountable gap of missing nearly half of his junior year to work in a bakery.

 

“Yes?” David asked. “That’s an application I reviewed.”

 

Denton turned around and clicked two buttons on his computer before turning back. “I know,” he said, “you denied him.”

 

David felt his heart rate pick up. “I did,” he said, listing out the reasons he’d done it with maybe a bit too much speed. “Why?” he asked. “I’m supposed to deny most applications.”

 

“Most,” Denton said, “not the qualified ones.”

 

He was dead serious. He even seemed a little pissed and David readjusted in his seat. “I thought the problem was that I was letting too many through? One denial and you’re calling me into your office?”

 

“Why this one?” David asked, “A student who missed school to work to bring money home to their family, and excelled in an academic extracurricular?”

 

David shook his head, “Because he missed too much school. He is going to be missing major academic components which—“

 

“Which could be said for almost all of our applicants,” Denton cut him off. “Why this one?”

 

Why this one? Why this conversation? Why was David saying no to an applicant—which Denton had been on him to do—suddenly a problem?

 

“Because,” David enunciated, “He—”

 

His family probably needs him. He will be overwhelmed by Pulitzer. Because he would drown. And David didn’t want Junior Milton to drown.

 

David couldn’t finish his sentence.

 

“Do you feel like you don’t belong here, David?” Denton asked.

 

David stared.

 

“Do you feel like I made a mistake by picking you?” Denton asked.

 

“Do you think you made a mistake by picking me?” David asked. Denton knew about his bad GPA this semester. He knew that David was a bad intern, and he knew what one of the board members had muttered, that David should have been “happy with what he got.”

 

“I don’t,” Denton stressed, “So why do you act like it’s a mistake that you’re here?”

 

“I don’t,” David said.

 

Denton gave him a level look. “I picked you,” he said, “because I saw a potential change maker. I saw a young man who excelled beyond all odds, and who was a true leader. That’s who I got. That’s who you are. You are here on purpose. I won’t let you play that out on applications though, I’m reversing your Junior Milton decision. ”

 

It was a good speech. David knew that something should have clicked in his head, something that made him okay with all the dark, doubting feelings that kept him up at night. But it didn’t happen. Because none of it was true. Instead, ire stirred in belly.

 

“You’re reversing my decisions?” he asked. “What gives you the authority to do that?”

 

Denton’s eyebrows shot up. “David,” he said, disbelieving, “I am in charge of this scholarship. I’ve been reviewing all your decisions.”

 

“You have?”

 

“This isn’t the first one I’ve reversed. You didn’t think you had free reign did you?”

 

That’s exactly what David thought. That’s what kept him up at night.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” David asked. “Oh my god. You—you talk to me about impostor syndrome but you’ve made me an actual impostor. Do you realize how fucked up that is?”

 

Denton sat back. “David—“

 

“Oh, and you want me to be honest with you, and you want me to be casual with you, but now that I am being that it’s a problem. God, Denton. This is such bullshit.” David stopped speaking because the next words on his lips would be impossible to take back.

 

Denton looked at the clock. “It’s almost lunch,” he said, clearing his throat. “Why don’t you go, get something to eat—“

 

“I packed a lunch.”

 

“—and go home.”

 

David froze. He’d gone too far. He’d been too honest. Dad always told him, bosses don’t want you to be real people. They don’t want to see that.

 

“You’re firing me?’ David asked, resigned.

 

Denton looked concerned. “No,” he said, “I’m recognizing that you need some space from me, from these applications. I’m giving that to you. You are not in charge of anything right now except taking care of yourself.”

 

“You’re not firing me.”

 

“I’m not. I’m not even holding this against you. I swear. Do you need me to walk you home?”

 

What a ridiculous question. David sniffed and absentmindedly wiped at his eyes. He stood up. “I’ll be back tomorrow at nine,” he said, resolute.

 

“Okay,” Denton said, “And David?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“They don’t always fire you. That’s not how it works, not for you. Not anymore.”

  

David called his mom while he walked home. She was probably at work because she worked now. It’s not like she worked when he was in high school working thirty hours a week and skipping school to unload crates but she worked now so he was surprised when she answered the phone.

 

“David?” she said, surprise clear in her voice.

 

He didn’t even know what he said to her. He just expelled everything that had happened that morning with Denton, with Junior Milton, with feeling useless and stupid and arrogant and wrong and dumb and wanting to go home. More than anything, wanting to go home.

 

“David,” she said, “you can always come home.”

 

David laughed, hysterical and he walked as fast as he could back to Badger Building. “I can’t, Mama! I have a job here! One that I’m messing up left and right on, but I have it! And I need the money! What if you need the money Mama? What if you need me to send it home?”

 

“I don’t think that will happen,” Mama said, “I am making good money and Sarah is making good money and—”

 

“Fine!” David shouted into the phone. “You don’t need me! Denton doesn’t need me! At least Spot needs me. At least someone does. Because what else am I good for.”

 

“David,” Mama said, voice sharp, “You are good on your own. You are a wonderful boy. I don’t want to hear you talking like that.”

 

Mama didn’t talk to him that way. Not since he’d grown up, years ago.

 

“Mama,” he started.

 

“You’re embarrassed,” she said, “that’s alright. That is no reason to lose your threads. Now take a deep breath and go home and take a nap. Is Sean going to be there when you get home?”

 

“Spot. And no.”

 

“Jack then,” she said, “go be with someone. Don’t handle this on your own.”

 

David thanked her and hung up. He went upstairs and got under Spot’s blanket and handled it exactly the way he wanted to just then.

 

Alone.

 

* * *

 

 

Aunt Elane said that Spot could come over from four to five thirty because at six ‘Isaiah” had therapy and after that he had to study.

 

It was better than nothing.

 

They played video games for most of the time, Boots crowing loudly every time he beat Spot and throwing popcorn at him when Spot won. It was awesome.

 

“You’re nineteen!” Boots said happily while they waited for the track to load. “How you like being wrong?”

 

“What?”

 

“You always used to say you’d turn into a pile of dust before becoming an adult. Eighteen was like, a trial run. Now you’re a real adult.”

 

Spot thought of his since full of dishes and how his only pair of jeans were all ripped at the ankles. He didn’t think he was a real adult, not as far as someone like Aunt Elane was concerned. But compared to his parents, and what he thought he’d grow up to be if he did, yeah. He was an adult.

 

“Only kind of,” Spot said, “Don’t get no ideas. I ain’t about to start paying taxes.”

 

Boots go real serious. “But Spot, you have to. It’s the law.”

 

Aunt Elane came out of her room and sent Boots into his room to change. Spot took his cue and stood up, picking popcorn out of the couch.

 

“Isaiah is doing very well in therapy,” she said, queen of the non-sequitur. Spot continued to ignore her as he picked up the popcorn. “He had a lot to work on. The homelessness at a young age. The trauma of being abandoned by his mother before that.”

 

Spot finally looked up. “Look,” he said, not wanting to deal with this today, “if I thought it was safe, I would have told the police or something about him. But nothing I’d experienced made me think that foster care or a fucking group home would be good for him so I—“

 

Aunt Elane held her hands up and shook her head, “That is not the can of worms I’m trying to open. I’m opening an entirely different one.”

 

“And which one is that?”

 

“You have a lot to work on too,” she said brusquely. “What you just said to me shows me that you experienced trauma in the system, on top being on the streets. I don’t care who you see, or if you see anyone, but I can see that it’s affecting you and I—”

 

“No thanks,” Spot said, “I’m good. I’m fine. No one is bleeding.”

 

“Just because no one is bleeding doesn’t mean everything is alright.”

 

Spot opened his mouth to reply, but Boots threw open his bedroom door and jumped into the living room. “Can Spot walk me to Miguel?”

 

Spot looked at Aunt Elane. Was he too much of a traumatized fuck up to walk a fourteen-year-old three blocks?

 

Aunt Elane nodded. “Yes,” she said, “text me when you get there. And Spot?”

 

“ _What?”_

“Happy birthday.”

 

Knowing David he was expecting all the guys in their apartment with balloons and a random man doing magic, but he was relieved to hear nothing as he worked on the three locks on their door and opened it to find the apartment full of the smell of egg and cinnamon.

 

“French toast?” he said, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice.

 

“Happy birthday!” David said, his voice less cheery than it was this morning, but still positive.

 

Spot walked into the kitchen. “What happened?” he asked.

 

David looked at him and smiled. “Nothing,” he said. “I’m fine.” His smile cracked, and almost without warning a tear trickled down his cheek. Spot quickly turned off the burner and took the pan off and stuck in on a cold burner. He grabbed David and wrapped him up in his arms.

 

“What happened?” he asked.

 

“Nothing,” David laughed, “it’s so stupid.”

 

Gradually, standing with his arms around David, he drew the truth out. That Denton was an asshole, like Spot had always suspected. He’d made David feel like he had this massive responsibility then revealed that it was all a trick in the most dickish way possible. Spot was tempted to go find Denton’s car if he had a car and slash the tires. More than tempted. He as already planning on getting Blink to hack the parking database for Pulitzer and figure out which car was Denton’s.

 

“It’s so stupid,” David said, wiping his eyes on the side of Spot’s head like he didn’t even notice what he was doing. “What am I even doing if he’s reviewing all my decisions? Why am I even here?”

 

“Money,” Spot said.

 

“I could have gotten an internship in Chicago. I could have been with my family. What even was the point?”

 

 _Me,_ a tiny, barely breathing part of Spot dared to think.

 

“You were,” David said, much more confident than the voice in his head, “I just wish I wasn’t such a fool. God.”

 

“Denton is an asshole,” Spot said, “You’re not wrong to be upset.”

 

David kissed his cheek. “Thanks,” he said, “You’re the best.”

 

“Am not,” Spot said.

 

“The best newly nineteen-year-old in this apartment. Which, oh gosh. I need to finish your birthday dinner.”

 

“Forget it,” Spot said, “Let’s go out.”

 

Except they didn’t go out right away. David stopped crying and started kissing Spot, starting on the side of his face then moving to kissing him for real. They were still tangled up in each other, and stumbled backward into the living room. Spot led them to the couch.

 

“Wait,” David panted, “the floor.”

 

Spot pulled away, “The floor?” he asked.

 

“It’s more comfortable than the couch.”

 

He laughed, “There’s no sexy way to fall onto the floor.”

 

“Then we’ll do it unsexily,” David said.

 

They fell to the floor in a very unsexy manner, David landing on top of Spot, bracing himself on his knee and elbows. His elbows were on either side of Spot’s head, and David hovered a foot above him, grinning. He leaned down and kissed Spot.

 

Spot tried to get carried away. He tried not to think about how they were rarely in this position. Spot always managed to be on top, in control. He tried not to think of the hard ground below the carpet digging into his spine. He tried so hard to focus on the feeling of David’s arm under his hand.

 

David seemed to be having no such trouble. He was kissing Spot like it was his first language. His hands skimmed over his waist, over his arm still lying above his head on the floor.

 

Sure as anything, David turned his hand and closed it over Spot’s wrist, pinning it—

 

_—to the hard mattress, Brayden’s breath hot on his face_

_The smell of Lysol thick in the air, someone holding down his feet_

_“Shut up! I hear staff!”—_

Spot yanked his other hand off Brayden’s arm and slammed it into his nose. Brayden cried out and jerked away, and Spot used the space to wriggle out from under him, landing on his knees reading to fucking destroy this asshole if he touched him again.

 

He inhaled and exhaled out the smell of a dozen boys sharing three rooms, the scent of Lysol and prepubescent sweat. He felt the hand still pressing down his wrist even as he blinked and saw David sputter and hold up a hand to stop the blood flowing from his nose.

 

“Oh God, Spot,” David said.

 

Spot heaved in air, desperate to get the smell out of his nose, to feel his hands again. Part of him knew that David was the person he had hit, that David was his boyfriend and David was the one bleeding because of him. But he didn’t see David, really, he saw Brayden glowering at him—over him—spitting the word “faggot” like it would burn him if it stayed in his mouth another moment.

 

It was Spot’s fault it was there in the first place.

 

“Don’t fucking touch me!” Spot spat.

 

Blood was covering David’s hand, dripping down it. “Trust me,” he said, his voice thick, “I’m in no rush to touch you.”

 

David got up off the floor and went into the kitchen. Spot heard water run, and heard the rip of paper towels. He stayed on the floor, even though it was risky, anyone could jump him just sitting on the floor. But he was in his apartment. He wasn’t in that group home. David wouldn’t hurt him.

 

God.

 

But he hurt David.

 

The smell of Lysol and sweat dissipated and was replaced with the humid, scrubbed out smell of beer that took over their apartment the night after a party. He was in the apartment he shared with David.

 

David came out of the kitchen, pressing a wad of paper towels to his nose. He’d washed up, but Spot could still see the remnants for blood staining his hand.

 

“You wanna explain what the fuck that was about?” David asked.

 

No.

 

He really didn’t.

 

“I should be clear,” David said, “If you don’t explain why you just hit me, I’m going to Swifty’s and I’m staying there until I figure out how I’m supposed to live with someone who hit me.”

 

“I didn’t hit you,” Spot said.

 

“Oh!” David said, voice big and in any other context, comical. “We’ve already moved onto gaslighting! Should I go get a pamphlet from the student center? See how many more you can tic off?”

 

Spot meant to spring up and make himself as big as possible, standing at five foot five. It was the right way to respond in a fight, but instead, he sank further into the floor and covered his eyes with the heels of his hands.

 

He couldn’t see David, but he heard him sniff and sit down close to him. Spot shuffled away like a child. He didn’t want to be close to David right now.

 

“I thought you were someone else,” he said.

 

“Are you making out with someone else on the reg?” David asked. Spot could hear him blow air out of his nose and cough. He was bleeding because of Spot. Because for ten seconds he thought he was thirteen and something that didn’t even fucking matter was happening again when it _wasn’t._

Spot didn’t take his hands off his eyes, he just sat on the floor like a child as the moments stretched on. He waited, listening for David to get up and walk away but he didn’t.

 

“Are you that closeted?” David asked quietly, “you can’t even kiss me in our own home without violence?”

 

Spot was exhausted and scared and wasn’t able to use his voice to point out that he’d made out with David plenty but this time was different and why didn’t David just know that?

 

David waited. Spot didn’t know how long. Eventually, he heard David get up and run the sink and rip off more paper towels.

 

“I stopped bleeding,” he announced. “I’m going to go change my shirt and go to Swifty’s for the night because kind of…fuck you right now, okay? Jesus Christ.”

 

Spot didn’t move, even when he heard the door close.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Spot has a flashback to an attack when he was younger that is implied but not directly stated to possibly be a sexual assault. During the flashback he hits David causing him to bleed. He also recalls being called the f slur. 
> 
> This begins at: “Then we’ll do it unsexily,” David said.


	11. Separated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some hard stuff in this one too. Nothing graphic is shown or discussed. More detailed warnings at the end of the chapter.

Swifty and Jack’s apartment was identical to theirs in terms of layout and furniture, but that was where the similarities stopped. While theirs was bare and smelled like beer and humidity no matter what they did, it took a minute for David to identify that Swifty and Jack’s smelled like lavender. There was a fuzzy collapsible chair by the couch and a set of tarot cards—which David could only identify from the time that Swifty shyly brought them to a party, only to quickly return them to his apartment when Blink drunkenly demanded to know his future—stacked neatly on the coffee table. There were Christmas lights hanging everywhere on removable hooks, giving the apartment a dim, fuzzy glow and if it were any other day, David might have been able to relax in an apartment that vibed calm, but he wasn’t.

 

David has checked before leaving his apartment with his backpack that there was no evidence that blood had been dripping out of his face ten minutes ago. He washed all the blood off his hands and his face, taking care to get around his nostrils in case any got left behind. He threw out his shirt—a grey plain Hanes tee he didn’t care about, and changed into a new one. There was nothing he could do for the redness on the left side of his nose that he suspected might bruise, or the aching awful feeling inside him.

 

Jack was oblivious, he just threw open the door and yelled, “Davey!” and invited him in. He shuffled David over to the couch and showed him YouTube video after YouTube video, and finally said something when he noticed David hadn’t laughed at the baboon once.

 

“Why ain’t you with Spot?” he asked. “Ain’t it his birthday?”

 

“Yeah,” David said. For all the time he’d spent sitting in silence on the ground, waiting for Spot to talk, knowing he wouldn’t, he hadn’t come up with a lie. And he needed one. Immediately. “We needed some space.”

 

Jack nodded. He leaned over his laptop and queued up a new video, but stopped it ten seconds in. “Space why?”

 

“We just did,” David sighed.

 

“Did you have a fight?”

 

“Yes,” David admitted.

 

“What did he do?”

 

Even though Spot _had_ done something, David’s defenses prickled. He just shook his head. “Play the video,” he said.

 

“David—“

 

“Play the video,” David demanded.

 

Jack started to say something, but he must have seen something in David’s face that made him back down. He played video after video, and David sat there, not laughing, not crying. Not doing anything.

 

He’d never been hit before. Not once. Not by bullies, certainly not by his parents, and not by Declan and not by Spot before this. He’d always known that Spot had a potential for violence. He’d seen him push Racetrack around, and he’d told David a story once, while drunk, about beating up a man who tried to talk to Boots. He was proud of it.

 

Why had he hit David? It didn’t make any sense. They weren’t even as involved as they had been other times, and all David had done was kiss him. Why didn’t even help David when he was bleeding? Why didn’t he explain it?

 

David couldn’t help but rub his nose where he knew it was red. He hoped it wouldn’t bruise, but he’d never been hit before so he didn’t know if it would. It occurred to him that Spot would probably now, but he wasn’t about to ask him. He couldn’t see ever speaking to Spot again, at this point.

 

David wanted to go home more than anything.

 

Jack put on a movie and David rubbed his nose and nodded off on the couch. He woke up when the door opened and Swifty blew into the room in the way that only Swifty could. He moved like he was pushed by the wind, practically jumping from place to place. Swifty grinned when he saw David.

 

“Where’s Spot?” he asked.

 

Even though he was closer to Jack than Swifty, and he didn’t want to cry in front of Swifty, for some reason those words unlocked something inside him and he started crying. It was the first time he’d cried since Spot hit him and he couldn’t help it. Swifty leapt into the kitchen and David turned to see him fill up a kettle and stick it on a burner.

 

“Hold on,” Swifty said, “hold on. I’m making tea as fast as I can.”

 

“That’s okay,” David sniffed. Jack had put a hand on his shoulder and was rubbing. “I don’t need tea.”

 

“You need tea,” Swifty said. “Everyone needs tea.”

 

A few minutes later Swifty handed him a hot mug that smelled like peppermint. “You steep this for seven minutes,” Swifty said. “Just hold it in your hands and smell it.”

 

David had stopped crying. It was like a faucet was turned on then shut off. He nodded and held the tea.

 

Swifty sat down on the floor next to the couch, watching David carefully. “What happened?” he asked.

 

David didn’t know how to answer that without revealing that he and Spot were in a relationship. He didn’t know why he was still guarding that secret, when Spot clearly had no respect for him. But still, he knew it would destroy Spot if he revealed their secret so he just sighed and said, “Spot and I had a fight. A roommate fight.”

 

“A boyfriend fight,” Swifty corrected.

 

David just nodded.

 

“What happened to your nose?”

 

Jack jumped up and looked all over David’s face before sighing and reaching towards the redness on David’s face. David pulled away. “Did he fucking do that?” Jack asked.

 

“No,” David said immediately, then corrected, “It was an accident.”

 

Right? It had to have been?

 

“You sound like my mom,” Swifty said grimly. “That’s fucked up. No one should sound like my mom.”

 

David sighed. He knew he should explore that, but he currently was too wrapped up in himself, and he had a feeling that Swifty wanted to leave it at that. “Do you want to—“ he said anyway.

 

“No,” Swifty said gently. “This is about you right now.”

 

“It _was_ an accident,” David insisted. “He didn’t explain, but he was really upset after and—“

 

“You. Sound. Like. My. Mom.” Swifty punctuated. “Nothing excuses him hitting you.”

 

David shook his head. “You should have seen him. He could barely talk after. He just sat on the ground with his hands over his eyes. He said—“ David suddenly remembered, “he said he thought I was someone else.”

 

Swifty and Jack looked at each other, like people sharing secret knowledge. Something David didn’t have access to.

 

“Still,” Swifty said, “I’m going to kill him.”

 

David was surprised to see Swifty’s hero worship of Spot so quickly reversed. It made sense, given what he’d just revealed, but David was still worried about how he could bring things back around Spot’s favor.

 

Who did he think David was?

 

Swifty took a sip of his tea even though it hadn’t been seven minutes. “Do you want me to do a reading on you?” he asked.

 

David looked at the tarot cards and shook his head. “It seems—sacrilege?”

 

“What’s the Jewish stance on tarot cards?” Jack asked in his big Jack voice, an attempt to lighten the mood.

 

“Never learned about them at JCC or in Temple,” David said, “so I don’t know. It doesn’t matter though. I don’t want to know my future right now.”

 

Swifty nodded. “Do you want to sleep?”

 

“I do,” David said.

 

“Then we’ll do that.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Spot didn’t go to sleep and he didn’t go to work.

 

He went to Brooklyn.

 

He hadn’t been since he came to Pulitzer. It was far away, and he didn’t have anything tangible there anymore with Boots in Washington Heights. It had been a year, one day off, from when Denton picked him up from the group home and rode the subway with him to an empty dorm floor where he would be staying, alone, until the retreat.

 

“Do you have sheets?” Denton had asked.

 

“Why would I have sheets?”

 

“Do you have money for sheets?”

 

“Why would I have money for sheets?”

 

Denton just nodded and disappeared then called him two hours later to come downstairs where he had discounted mismatched packages of sheets and towels and a pillow. All of which were sitting in the apartment he shared with David.

 

Did David go to work? Spot didn’t remember if he’d hit him hard enough to leave a bruise. Spot had had nosebleeds before that left no marks. He hoped he hadn’t left a mark. Not that it excused what he’d done.

 

When he’d gone into the bathroom after pulling himself up off the floor, he found David’s bloody t-shirt in the trash and vomited.

 

Then he took a two-hour shower. He was waiting for the water to go cold but it never did, so he stayed under the hot spray until the skin on his shoulders started peeling and his hands wrinkled to uselessness, so then he lay on the bathroom floor.

 

He couldn’t lie down in the bed he shared with David, and he couldn’t lie on the couch where he was with David and he couldn’t lie on the floor where he hit David.

 

He hit David.

 

He hit David.

 

He hit David.

 

He’d hit a lot of people in life. He didn’t know how many. He’d never regretted it before.

 

It’s not enough that he hit David. It’s that there’s memories that he’s ignored for so many years were coming rushing back. Hands holding him down, Brayden. Fucking Brayden. Fucking sociopath. When he closed his eyes he had to press the heels of his palms over them to cause yellow blue splotches to cover up the image of Brayden’s icy eyes and chipped front tooth. It was pathetic. He was eighteen—nineteen. Six years out from what happened to him. Fuck him for being upset about something so dumb.

 

He blamed Aunt Elane. “Experienced trauma in the system.” Fuck that. Fuck her. Nothing he’d experienced was that bad, but it had peeled up a corner in his brain and primed him to act like and idiot when David was just being _normal._

David wanted an explanation. Spot couldn’t give one. Even if he could, it wouldn’t do anything. But he’d never told anyone before.

 

Not even when staff found him and asked him, and brought him to the hospital. They asked him there, too. He refused every exam, everything except stitches for his forehead. His father still had parental rights at that point, so he got called and showed up at the hospital. He wasn’t allowed to see Spot, but he heard him yelling at the staff, saying words that ran through Spot’s head whenever he even tried to consider that what happened wasn’t entirely his fault.

He got off the bathroom floor and dressed and walked over the Brooklyn Bridge. It was deserted this time of night, and he had music blaring in his ears as he walked against the wind, back to the borough he’d called home until a year ago.

 

In the dark, it was how he remembered it. Cold for July, with threats walking down the street and Spot bracing for a fight or a hand on his shoulder as he passed strangers. It was when the sun came up and people started emerging from their apartments and homes that it became weird.

 

The hipsters that Spot had detested and robbed when he was a teenager were now familiar. They looked like his classmates, people who sometimes smiled at him in the cafeteria. They looked like Swifty and Mush and Dutchy with their sprayed hair and carefully selected vintage clothes. Spot was tempted to mug every single one of them.

 

He could.

 

He could run away. He could leave Pulitzer, leave his belongings, leave _David_ and go back to living in back alleys and scarce abandoned buildings and residential hotels. He had a bank card with him, he could buy a laptop and find his way into an academic 24-hour library and just work on Quick Papers and never sleep and never eat and never talk to anyone ever he could—

 

He could give up.

 

It would be easier.

 

His father never hit his mother. Or him. He’d seen it done in foster homes, but it wasn’t enough exposure to even consider attributing the horrendous thing he’d done to a cycle of any kind. It was all him.

 

David pinned his wrist to the ground. He didn’t know anything because Spot hadn’t told him anything. Did he think it was cool? Kinky? Something new to spice up their non-sex life? Part of him was angry at David who never asked permission, who stopped when Spot asked him to but wasn’t scared to touch him.

 

Spot thought of the time, early in the semester, when David tried sucking a hickey into Spot’s neck. When he shoved David off, heart racing, David thought it was because he was closeted and didn’t want anyone seeing. Spot just agreed because it was easier than admitting it wasn’t David he felt. Not just then. 

 

At nine Kloppman called him and asked if he was coming in. Spot didn’t bother lying.

 

“I just destroyed my life,” he said flatly into the phone.

 

“Oh!” Kloppman said. “I suppose you’ll need some time. Will you be returning?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“Let me know,” Kloppman said, “You are replaceable, but I would hate to lose your wit.”

 

Spot hung up.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

David’s face didn’t bruise.

 

He was relieved and annoyed. He was pretty sure he’d been hit quite hard, and it was odd to discover it didn’t merit a bruise.

 

But most of his was relieved. He felt Swfity’s careful eyes on him as he packed his messenger bag to go to work. Swifty was treating him like he was made of glass and it was annoying. No one understood. He knew Spot hadn’t meant to hit him—he’d been horrified. But he didn’t apologize. And he didn’t explain.

 

David needed him to explain.

 

He called his mom on his walk to work. His stomach was churning thinking of facing Denton after he’d yelled at him. Yesterday was totally fucked up. His mom answered right away.

 

“David I’m right outside the shop, I can talk for three minutes,” she informed him.

 

“I’m sorry,” David said right away. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

 

“Oh David,” Mama said, “That’s alright. I wish you would tell me more about what’s going on with you. I feel like you’re so distant.”

 

“I talk to you almost every day,” David said.

 

“Still.”

 

David knew what she meant.

 

“Maybe I’ll come visit?” David said. He dodged a runner and stepped around a dog walker. “Maybe in a few weeks?”

 

Mama made a happy sound. “Oh honey,” she said, “I would love that. And bring Spot!”

 

One of his parents had finally got Spot’s name right, but that didn’t help the pit in David’s stomach.

 

Denton was in the common area when David arrived. It was the first time all summer he’d gotten to the office before David. He was holding two venti coffees and offered one to David.

 

“Come to my office?”

 

David’s chest burned. “Yeah,” he said, “of course.”

 

Being in Denton’s windowless office, David couldn’t help but think of the conversation they’d had the day before. It was a bad memory, one he was embarrassed of, so he started first.

 

“I apologize,” he said, “It was wrong of me to lose my temper. And curse. It was unacceptable.”

 

Denton nodded. “I don’t have to tell you that behavior is not acceptable in a professional setting. If you were a typical employee, if you weren’t nineteen and I didn’t know what it meant to be nineteen, it would be a different story.”

 

“You would have fired me?” David asked.

 

“I wouldn’t have fired you,” Denton said, “I don’t know what I would have done. I’ve never been in this position before. Perhaps that why I made such a mistake with you.”

 

Daivd’s stomach sank. In hiring him? Is that what Denton meant?

 

He said, “I was not clear about your responsibilities. I told you that you were screening candidates. I did not tell you I was reviewing all your decisions. You had a safety net all along. I should have told you.”

 

David was frozen. Denton was right. He had enough sense of the world to know that. He didn’t know whether he was allowed to agree with Denton or not. He had gotten office politics so terribly wrong the day before, he wasn’t sure if any option he had in mind was right at all.

 

“Yeah,” he finally settled on. “I mean. It was a lot for me. I was so nervous about making these decisions. I felt like their futures were in my hands. But they never were. I was embarrassed.”

 

“That’s a lot,” Denton acknowledged. “I’m sorry I put that on you.”

 

“I mean, you didn’t.”

 

“I did,” Denton said, “And I apologize.”

 

“Well,” David said, “I apologize too.”

 

David went to work, and managed to only sometimes think about what happened with Spot. He moved through applications more quickly knowing that Denton would be looking at them too. Medda came through on her way to the office and stopped.

 

“You alright, kid?” she asked.

 

David jumped. He didn’t know what she was talking about. David’s face wasn’t bruised, and he hadn’t even moved or talked since Medda walked in.

 

“I am,” David said.

 

Medda tilted her head. “Well. All right,” she said. The disappeared into her office and thirty seconds later Denton emerged from his.

 

“Let’s get lunch,” he said. “I know you packed one, but I’m still buying you lunch.”

 

“I didn’t actually,” David said, getting up. Maybe this would get he and Denton on a better track. “That sounds good.”

 

Denton smiled at him. They ended up going to a diner across the street from Tibby’s, one that had worse hours and worse food and worse prices, but it was good enough for one lunch.

 

David ordered a soda and a burger and fries. Denton ordered a tuna salad sandwich.

 

“You have Medda worried about you,” Denton said, looking at his food.

 

David had figured that Medda messaged Denton that something was wrong with David. He would take the free lunch, but he wasn’t about to tell Denton what happened. Denton was both their scholarship advisor’s, but he liked David more. And he would get Spot in trouble.

 

“I’m fine,” David said, “It’s just stuff at home.”

 

“Everything alright at home?” Denton asked.

 

David knew Denton was referring to Chicago, but David thought of the small apartment where Spot was probably currently drunk and lying in their bed, knowing him.

 

“It’s just tense,” he said, “misunderstandings.”

 

Denton nodded. “Spot supporting you?” he asked. “As a roommate?”

 

“Spot’s great,” David said immediately, with no defensiveness in his voice. He meant it. Spot was great. Spot was always up for going on walks, for listening to David talk about his family. He was enthusiastic about learning to cook because David needed him to be, and when David looked at him lounging on the couch he felt light and good and _right._

Except Spot had hit him out of nowhere.

 

Except he _knew_ it was an accident. Spot had thought he was someone else, but he didn’t understand how or _why._

Maybe there was too much he didn’t know about Spot and never would. Spot was the most closed off person he had ever met. He knew everything about Declan in high school, practically lived inside his life. Spot had let him in in some areas, introduced him to Boots, and...that was about it.

 

How was he supposed to have a relationship like that?

 

“I think I’m going to break up with my boyfriend,” David said.

 

There.

 

He said it.

 

He wasn’t breaking Spot’s confidence or getting him in trouble.

 

But as Denton loved to remind him, he was still his advisor and he was still meant to be here for David.

 

And right now he needed an adult.

 

“Why?” Denton asked.

 

David explained, “He acts in there’s really inexplicable ways, but doesn’t explain himself. It’s no fun to be with someone who shuts everyone out and only opens up to you, when he barely does that. It’s not good.”

 

“Can I admit that I know who you are talking about?”

 

“No,” David said, “I need you not to know for this conversation to continue.”

 

Denton nodded. “Go on then,” he said.

 

“I deserve someone who isn’t just there for me, who let’s me be there for them too! Or else what am I doing?”

 

Denton’s eyes glinted. “David,” he said, “I understand wanting reciprocity. That is the foundation of a good relationship. But I want to check in on that. Do you think things are only going well if you are helping someone?”

 

What the fuck?

 

“That’s all life is,” David said, “Helping people. That’s all we’re supposed to do.”

 

“That’s true to an extent, but it’s not all there is.”

 

David shook his head. “That’s not what this is about. Do you think I shouldn’t break up with him?”

 

“I can’t tell you that,” Denton said, “but I want to make sure you know. Helping people is not all there is.”

 

Denton didn’t get it. That much was clear. But it felt good to talk to an adult and admit the thing he felt guilty for thinking.

 

“I don’t know if I’m breaking up with him,” David said.

 

“That’s okay,” Denton said, “Wait until you know.”

 

****

 

 

 

 

He walked until his feet hurt and his iPhone died. He eventually started repeating streets and the sun began to set. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast the day before and his phone had been dead for six hours. He found a familiar library and checked out a phone charger, hoping that a thousand texts from David would pour in once he turned on his phone, but it was only one from Kid Blink.

 

_McDonalds and drinks????????????_

_Not in badger building,_ Spot replied

 

_I’ll come to you!!!!!!!!_

Spot shook his head. Blink must not have heard what happened.

 

Maybe he could say goodbye to Blink? Maybe get him to pass along a message to David?

 

 _Brookl_ yn _Heights BPL branch,_ Spot sent, anticipating that it would be too far for Blink to consider. He didn’t know why he even sent the message. He didn’t want to see anyone. But Blink replied that he was on his way, and forty minutes later Blink was standing over him.

 

Spot jumped up. Blink stepped back. “Not trying to fight you, pal,” he said. “I still want McDonald's.

 

Spot just nodded and unplugged his phone. He was surprised to see Kid Blink even though he’d said he was coming. Part of him suspected that Blink knew, everyone knew and hated him. He deserved it.

 

They took the subway back to Manhattan to get to a McDonalds because Brooklyn sucked now. Sitting on the subway, Spot’s feet pulsed with the beat of his heart. It was possible that walking for almost twenty-four hours was overdoing it.

 

“Where you been?” Blink asked after they ordered.

 

Spot shrugged.

 

Blink was quiet while they got an isolated table in the back. Spot had bought is usual order—a quarter pounder with cheese and fries, but he didn’t touch it. His stomach wasn’t telling him he was hungry and he thought if he ate he might be sick. Blink dug into his chicken nuggets ravenously.

 

Spot watched him eat. He thought of what he knew about Blink. He’d come out at fourteen and Spot knew based on the stories Blink thought were funny, he’d been bullied in his Arizona high school not just for being gay, but losing an eye.

 

Blink thought they were friends. Maybe they were. Maybe Spot didn’t have enough experience with it to know if they were or not. He was never seeing Blink again after this. So it didn’t matter what he said to him.

 

“Hey,” he said, getting Blink’s attention off his chicken nuggets, “know how you’re gay?”

 

Blink laughed openly. “I’m familiar, yeah.”

 

“Anyone ever fuck with you because of it?”

 

He dropped the nugget in his hand and sat up, attention shifting fully onto Spot. “Well, yeah,” he said, “I told you about what I went through in high school. Porn on my locker. Lube poured in my backpack. People mimicking what I said with a lisp even though I talk like this. Was awful.”

 

Spot nodded. “Was that it?” he asked.

 

Blink laughed. “Is that not enough for you?”

 

“Yeah. I mean it sucks,” Spot said, “but did anyone _fuck with you.”_

His eye widened and Spot knew he had understood his meaning. He also knew, instantly, that he answer was “no” and Spot was the fucked up one for asking.

 

“If anyone fucked with me,” Blink said quietly, “It would have been because of them, not because I’m gay.”

 

“No,” Spot struggled to say, “No I mean. Someone fucking with you _because_ you’re gay. Like because they knew.”

 

“I know what you meant,” Blink said, in a low serious voice Spot had never heard rom him before, “And I’m telling you. People can say it was because you were gay, but it’s not. It’s because there’s something seriously wrong with them and the wanted to commit an act of violence.”

 

Blink didn’t understand what Spot was talking about. He couldn’t. He was talking about something else entirely.

 

“I’m talking about,” he said, enunciating clearly, “someone—like another kid, living with a kid and figuring out they were gay and him and other kids…fucking with him because of it. It’s because the kid was gay. It’s not—”

 

“It’s _not,”_ Blink said, “It’s because the other kid wanted power and control, or had something else going wrong with him, inside him. Not the gay kid. The gay kid was a victim.”

 

Spot’s head was racing. His palms were sweating and he felt a hand creep onto the back of his neck. “No,” he said, “no. That doesn’t’ make sense.”

 

“It wasn’t your fault,” Blink said quietly, “It wasn’t because you were gay. It wasn’t.”

 

Spot didn’t know the last time he’d cried, but he wasn’t about to start crying in a McDonalds. Not in front of strangers. He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes.

 

“I didn’t say it was me,” he said.

 

“I’m sorry,” Blink said, “that was wrong of me to assume.”

 

Spot squinted under his hands.

 

It was his fault.

 

It had to be.

 

What would it mean to tell Blink?

 

“My dad,” he said, “he thought it was my fault.”

 

It was as good as admitting something had happened to him.

 

“Fuck your dad,” Blink said immediately. “Fuck your fucking dad. Is he around anymore? Does he have anything to do with your life?”

 

“No,” Spot said, “but. He’s my dad. He knew me better than you do. So he would know better than you.”

 

Blink shook his head. “How’s this? I’m a Gender and Women’s Studies major and I work for the Women’s Center—shocking right?—and I’ve read about a thousand journals about rape culture and predators and I’m the best thing in your life to an expert.”

 

“I don’t care,” Spot said, taking his hands off his eyes. He was still in danger of crying but his eyes hurt and he wanted to see Blink when he said this. “It was my fault.”

 

“I don’t care if you were the gayest kid in the world. I don’t care what you did. It. Was. Not. Your. Fault.”

 

His vision blurred. It had been so long since he cried that it took a second for him to realize what was happening. But when his breathing hitched and he let out a quivering breath, he knew it was undeniable. He was crying in a McDonalds because Blink was lying to him.

 

Could it be true?

 

Could it really not be his fault?

 

“I don’t know if you’re hearing me,” Blink said. “So I’m going to keep saying it. Is that alright?”

 

Spot nodded. He was breathing like half his lungs had been ripped out and he wiped the tears off his face before they could roll down his cheeks.

 

“It was not your fault,” Blink said in that low serious voice, “It wasn’t because of anything you did or didn’t do. It was because of them.”

 

Blink kept talking, but a buzzing took over his ears. He felt all the thoughts he’d stuffed into a box over six years flow past his brain with no weight. The words he’d overheard his father shouting at staff, the words Brayden had whispered in his ear, the ones he’d tamped down and ignored every single time David touched him unexpectedly. He’d become an expert at ignoring the words. For years it was like it never even happened.

 

He stared at Blink as he spoke, looking at his mouth more than hearing his words.

He had told someone, and they weren’t disgusted with him. He had told someone and they didn’t blame him. They didn’t hate him.

 

Maybe David wouldn’t hate him either.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter throughout contains discussion of Spot hitting David. The Spot sections contain a lot of Spot blaming himself for the attack, references to someone else blaming him for it, and entirely non-graphic references to the attack and attacker. Just a lot of shame D:
> 
> If you want more details, message me on tumblr: rudeflower


	12. Eight of Cups

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning at all for this chapter may be overdoing it but I'd rather overdo it. End notes, bb.

Blink came home with him. He stopped crying, eventually. When he did Blink hailed a cab and put him inside of it, careful not to touch him. Blink had never been careful about touching him, before. He just did it, smacking him on the shoulder or grabbing his wrist when Spot went to draw a card too early.

 

Spot wasn’t sure if he was annoyed or relieved.

 

At Badger Building the elevator doors opened on the seventh floor to reveal Jack and Swifty flanking David. David’s nose wasn’t bruised, and with no visual evidence Spot almost could pretend, for just a second, that he never did anything.

 

David looked at him stonily for a moment, before his eyes met Spot’s, and David’s widened in surprise. Spot rubbed self-consciously at his eyes. They felt dry and swollen and he knew he looked like he’d been crying.

 

He couldn’t think about what that might mean for David.

 

“Excuse us,” Swifty said in an abrupt, hard voice that was as new as Blink low, serious voice in the McDonalds. “We’re leaving.”

 

Blink stepped around the group and Spot did too. David turned his head as he walked by, but neither of them said anything to each other.

 

David looked okay. He was dressed in his internship clothes. He was with better people than Spot. Maybe he would be fine without him. Spot still wasn’t sure if he was leaving or staying, so it made sense not to drag things on by talking to David. He didn’t even know what he would say.

 

The others loaded up into the elevator and the doors closed. Spot tried not to think of the possibility that it was the last time he would see David.

 

Blink didn’t seem to pick up on his drama, he just led them to Spot’s apartment and looked at him pointedly, waiting for Spot to produce his keys.

 

“I don’t want to go in there,” Spot said.

 

“Okay,” Blink said, “But, hey listen. Skittery is always in our apartment. And I don’t know if you’re done talking about this, and it’s fine if you are, but you gotta consider that Skittery might—“

 

“I’m done,” Spot said. “I’m not talking about this for another six years.”

 

They got to Blink’s apartment and Blink checked all the rooms, then said, “Okay, Skittery’s at work. We can talk.”

 

“I told you,” Spot groaned as he fell on their couch. While his and David’s was a blood red, Blink and Skittery’s was navy blue. Their entire apartment was identical to theirs, but they had lamps that they used instead of the fluorescent overhead lights and there was a weird heavy blanket on the couch that thumped when Spot dropped it on the floor. “I’m not talking about this anymore.”

 

“Okay,” Blink said, “We can do whatever you want to do.”

 

Spot held out his hand for one of the beers Blink got out of the fridge. “Where did you get these?” he asked.

 

“Um,” Blink said, “I took them from your fridge the other night?”

 

“You’re stealing from me, asshole?”

 

“Technically I’m giving them back to you,” Blink pointed out, “It ain’t stealing.”

 

“It’s stealing,” Spot said.

 

Blink sat down next to Spot on the couch. “We can watch TV, we can thumb wrestle, we can play Kings.”

 

Spot still wasn’t sure if he was running away or not, so he wasn’t sure how drunk he wanted to get. It was good this happened in the summer, it was a lot easier to establish a hustle when it wasn’t cold out. He’d be lonely, without Boots, but he’d been alone before. He’d done it. He’d be fine.

 

“Gender and Women Studies?” he couldn’t help but ask. “I thought you were Graphic Design?”

 

Blink perked up and sat crossed legged on the couch. “I’m both! Damn, right? I’m full of surprises.”

 

Spot shrugged, “Um. Yeah? You never said shit about it. You’re all about computers and shit and you’re all ‘I hate everyone’ which. I’ve never talked to a Women and Gender Studies major who wasn’t—who wasn’t a woman, by the way.”

 

“Yep,” Blink agreed simply. “I never said I hated everyone. I said I like some people but don’t like the rest of them. That don’t mean I’m a sociopath. I care about people who are going through shit.”

 

“And you work at the Women’s Center?”

 

Blink nodded enthusiastically. “Yep! It is won-der-ful. They love me there. I’m in the middle of getting trained to do rape advocacy.”

 

“Jesus Christ. Is that what you’re doing with me?” Spot asked.

 

“Um, no,” Blink said, “Not really. I got a little angrier than I was supposed to? And I absolutely shouldn’t have assumed you were talking about yourself. I just knew that you were.”

 

Yeah, he hadn’t hidden that very well. He didn’t know what he was thinking, there.

Just that he was leaving right after this so it didn’t fucking matter what he said. It still didn’t.

 

So he said

 

“I hit David. And he’s my boyfriend. Still like me?”

 

Blink startled. He looked around like he was expecting someone else to be in the apartment then put his beer down. “You hit David?”

 

“And he’s my boyfriend.”

 

“Oh. Right. I’m surprised about that too,” Blink said, “why the fuck did you hit him?”

 

Good. Someone was mad at him. He’d gone twenty-four hours without getting chewed out for the terrible thing he’d done and it was high time someone fucking destroyed him over this.

 

“I don’t even know,” Spot said, “That’s how fucked up I am. We were making out—wait are you not surprised that David is my boyfriend?”

 

Blink shrugged, “I kind of would rather talk about the fact that you hit him?”

 

Spot wouldn’t, but if it would him fast tracked to being yelled at—maybe even hit—then he would do it. “We were making out and my fucking brain short circuited and I thought he was Bra—I thought he was one of the kids who…so I hit him.”

 

“Have you never kissed him before?” Blink asked. Spot gave him a “you idiot look.” Blink held up his hands. “I’m just wondering, what was different this time?”

 

“I don’t know. It was hot out. He was on top. My wallet was in my pocket. He held—“ Spot stopped talking.

 

The smell of Lysol. Sweat. Brayden.

 

He shook his head. “He just—he was doing something new. He held my wrist down. And I just freaked out, I fucking guess.”

 

“You had a flashback,” Blink said simply.

 

“No I didn’t,” Spot said immediately. If this impeded him getting screamed at then he’d be pissed.

 

“What do you think a flashback is?” Blink asked.

 

“It’s like,” Spot struggled, “It’s like when vets hide under a couch because they hear a car backfire.”

 

“How is that different than what you did?”

 

“I didn’t hide. I _hit David._ ”

 

“Because you had a flashback to being attacked. Because he did something without your permission that—”

 

“Stop!” Spot yelled. “He’s nothing like them. He’s not. Stop comparing what he did to them. It’s fucking different.”

 

“David should have asked,” Blink said, confident. Like it was true. “He should not have restrained you without asking. That’s like, 101.”

 

“He didn’t restrain me,” Spot said loudly.

 

“You told me he held your wrist down,” Blink said, “he didn’t negotiate that beforehand. If he had tried to, then you could have said no. But he didn’t.”

 

The buzzing was back in his ears. “David didn’t hurt me,” he said, “he didn’t do it on purpose.”

 

“You didn’t hit him on purpose,” Blink said. “Listen. This happens a lot. Couples get comfortable with each other and stop asking. But you have to keep asking. You can’t stop asking just because you think you know the answer.”

 

Spot had talked too much today about too many things. He felt like his brain was going to collapse in on himself. And he wasn’t even _drunk._ This was too much for one fucking day and he had to get out of this. He had to take a shower.

“What would you even know about this?” Spot snapped. “You’ve never even had a boyfriend. And don’t you trot out again that you are a fucking Gender and Women studies major. That doesn’t mean shit.”

 

“Uh, I know that you are super fucked up right now and David is super fucked up right now and that wouldn’t have happened if you talked to each other first.”

 

“This wasn’t David’s fault,” Spot insisted.

 

“Okay,” Blink said, “It wasn’t your fault either.”

 

“Are you just, like, programmed to say that to me?” Spot sneered.

 

Blink just shrugged. “Only when it’s true.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

At Tibby’s the didn’t talk about Spot. They didn’t talk about any of it. David was relieved.

 

Jack and David wanted to go get ice cream but David was tired. He hadn’t slept well the night before. Or all summer, really. Jack gave him his keys and left him to be alone in their apartment.

 

In the hallway he ran into Skittery for the first time in weeks. Skittery’s head was down, he walked with a cigarette between his lips and headphones over his ears. David called his name a few times but when he didn’t get his attention, he reached out and tapped Skittery on the shoulder.

 

Skittery jumped back and batted at David’s hand. “Shit!” he yelled, pulling his headphones off his ears. “You’re not supposed to touch someone without asking!”

 

“I barely touched you,” David said, “But I’m sorry. Can I talk to you?”

 

Skittery looked at his apartment door. “I want to go home,” he said.

 

“This will just take a second,” David promised. “Did you get the GPA? Did you make it?”

 

It was an old issue, but Skittery was the only person in their thirty person cohort that David didn’t know about. He needed to know.

 

Skittery rolled his eyes. “No,” he said, “Since it matters so much to you. I didn’t. I’m no longer a Roosevelter. Denton made it so I could stay in housing for the summer for free, but it’s over in August.”

 

David’s heart sank. If he’d done better, the GPA requirement for the semester would have been struck down but he hadn’t and now Skittery was screwed. Why couldn’t he fix things? “God,” he said, “I’m sorry. What are you going to do?”

 

“Take out loans,” Skittery shrugged. “Do what other poor kids do. Die in debt. Whatever.”

 

“I should have helped you study, or something,” David said.

 

“Don’t make this about you,” Skittery said evenly, “I didn’t study because I was focused on going to shows and working. It’s not about you.”

 

It’s not about him.

 

David wasn’t sure why the words hit him square in the chest, admonishing as they were. But they did.

 

“You’re going to be okay?” David asked, “I don’t have to worry about you?”

 

“Geez. Yes. Can I go in my apartment now?”

 

David nodded and headed across the hall. When Skittery opened his apartment door, the sound of Spot laughing escaped, but by the time David turned around the door was closed again.

 

It was odd, being in such a similar and different apartment alone. He opened his laptop, planning on watching old Boy Meets World videos on YouTube, but the second he opened his laptop a video request came out over Facebook from Sarah.

 

David mentally checked over himself and decided he didn’t look upset. He answered the call.

 

“Hey sis,” he said.

 

“What’s wrong with you?” Sarah asked him in a genial tone. She was in their room, no Les, but David didn’t hear the TV so his Papa was probably asleep. She was speaking quietly.

 

“What?”

 

“Mama is worried about you. You haven’t answered my texts today. What’s wrong with you?”

 

David blinked. “Nothing,” he said, “I’m fine.”

 

“You don’t look fine,” Sarah said.

 

“I’m—“ David struggled for words. He settled on the truth. “I’m having problems with my boyfriend.”

 

“Spike?”

 

“ _Spot.”_

 

“Right. Problems how?”

 

David shrugged. “Just problems. I don’t know. How’s Mom and Dad?”

 

Sarah grinned. “They’re great! Papa has started going on walks around the block. We got him on acupuncture! It’s helping a lot!”

 

“Medicaid covers acupuncture?”

 

“Assistant Manager money,” Sarah sang, holding her hand up to her mouth like a megaphone. “I keep telling you. We’re so flush right now.”

 

David nodded.

 

Sarah made a face.

 

“Why do you seem upset about that?” she asked. “You’ve been weird about it all summer. It’s a good thing! We haven’t asked you for money in months.”

 

“I know,” David said, “It’s good.”

 

Sarah paused. “You know,” she said, “our family isn’t normal. It’s not normal that you and I ditched school to work. It’s not normal that was expected. Hell, it’s not normal that I have a damn good job and could afford to live on my own, but still share my room with _Les._ Be glad you go out.”

 

David felt betrayal like he felt when other people remarked on his family, but this was coming from Sarah. “Why would you say that? All I want is to come home. I’m dying to come home.”

 

“Then come home,” Sarah said, “you have money now. But listen. Just. Think about it, okay? Our family isn’t normal.”

 

David didn’t really hear all of what she said. “You think I could come home?”

 

“Your boss is in love with you, right?” she asked, “He would give you the time off?”

 

“I don’t know,” David said.

 

“Well you can find out, right?” Sarah asked. “Keep it simple. Come home, don’t come home. It’s always been up to you.”

 

David didn’t manage to watch anything before Jack and Swifty came home. They came in the apartment loudly—or rather Jack did—bee lining for the kitchen and drinking straight out of a carton of milk.

 

He looked at Swifty. “You’re okay with that?”

 

Swifty shrugged. “It’s his milk. I’m lactose intolerant.” Jack laughed and announced he was taking a nap the disappeared into the bedroom. Swifty sat down on the ground in front of the coffee table and picked up his tarot cards. He shuffled them absent mindedly, gave moving around the room and landing on David a couple times.

 

He was so obvious it made David laugh. “Do you want to do a reading, Swifty?” he asked.

 

“If you insist,” Swifty said. He shuffled the cards with intention this time. “I’m not very good,” he said, “I learned from a friend. It’s not magic, it’s insight. But I think you need insight.” He offered the deck to David. “Knock on the deck. Twice, or something. Like that. We’re going to do a three card spread. Past, present, future.

 

David pulled out three cards and at Swifty direction picked up three cards and laid them out. He felt normal, no magic was flowing through the room. He had the desperate urge to laugh, but he didn’t want to do that to Swifty. He had a feeling it would crush him.

 

Swifty pointed to the first card. “Flip it over,” he said.

 

David hadn’t actually looked at Swifty’s tarot cards before. They had a shiny blue and gold backing and the first card he flipped said “Five of Pentacles” and depicted a woman holding five oversized coins tight to her chest. The drawing was smudged, like it had been drawn with oil pastels.

 

“Five of pentacles,” Swifty read, like he knew this card by heart, “This one means, ah, poverty. And insecurity. So in your past there’s been a lot of….”

 

“Yes,” David said, saving Swifty the embarrassment of hemming and hawing his way around this.

 

“It’s a card of adversity,” Swifty said, “It can be a bad omen, but in this case it’s in your past! So it can’t be in your present or you future. That’s awesome.”

 

“Sure,” David agreed.

 

“Next card,” Swifty gestured.” David flipped the middle card.

 

“Eight of cups,” Swifty read. The card showed a man climbing made of cups. “Hold on,” he reached under the table and pulled out a book that David hadn’t noticed. He flipped through it. “Okay. So. This is. Basically flight. Running. Retreat. But not giving up. It’s a point of transition. Something is changing.” He looked up at David. “Yeah?” he asked.

 

Spot. His family. Denton. Everything.

 

“Yeah,” David said.

 

Swifty nodded. He gestured for David to flip the next card, the future.

 

“Six of cups,” Swifty said. “Two cups in a row, that means something.” Swifty consulted his book, then shrugged, giving up.

 

The card was facing the opposite direction from the other cards. It depicted dancing children in a field.

 

“This one is upside down,” Swifty said, “So the meaning is the opposite. Normally it means like, childhood, naiveté. But it’s upside down. So what it means for you, is that, in your future, you’re moving out childhood, out of your family, in a way. You’re finding independence.”

 

“What about Spot?” David asked. “What does this card mean for him?”

 

Swifty looked at his book.

 

“Um,” he said, “I mean. This one is a lot about leaving childhood. So maybe you’re leaving behind your childish ways of handling things? Not that you’re childish?”

 

Swifty was reaching, that much was clear. David just nodded. “Okay,” he said, “Thanks for this.”

 

“This didn’t help,” Swifty said morose.

 

“It’s not magic,” David said, “That’s okay.”

 

* * *

 

 

 

David wanted to pick up a change of clothes at the same time Spot wanted to take a shower. They ran into each other in the hallway and stared at each other until David broke down and unlocked the three locks on their door and let them both in.

 

They stood in the living room and stared at each other.

 

“I don’t know what to say,” David said.

 

“That’s something,” Spot pointed out, “You said that much. That’s better than I could do.”

 

“I don’t know, you said three sentences just there,” David said.

 

They looked at each other, waiting for the other to smile. They weren’t there yet.

 

“I’m staying with Jack and Swifty tonight,” David said.

 

Spot nodded. “I’m staying with Blink.”

 

David narrowed his eyes. “Wait, why aren’t you staying here?”

 

Spot looked around the apartment. “Because I’m fucking wrecked?” he said. He knew it wasn’t obvious. David was the real victim in this; he was the one who fucked things up.

 

Except.

 

Blink had said—

 

“You are?” David asked.

 

“I blew up my entire life,” Spot said. “I lost you. I lost—basically the biggest secret I’ve ever had I just gave away and it wasn’t even to you. It was to Blink.”

 

David raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t expected this. Out of everything, he expected Spot to shut down more completely. “Wait? You told Blink about you? About us?”

 

“Yes,” Spot said. He hesitated. David waited. “But not that. I told him something else.”

 

David took a deep breath and sat down on the couch. Spot rocked on his feet for a moment before sitting on the couch next to David.

 

“Uh,” Spot said, “Um. Kid Blink said I had a flashback.”

 

David’s eyes widened and Spot imperceptibly shrank back on the couch. While both of them wanted to be closer to one another, David didn’t dare move in, and Spot was too afraid of what he was about to do to seek out comfort.

 

“Flashback to what?”

 

Spot took a deep breath. A moment of silence stretched over them, a thin, breathing silence that wove around them. A minute passed, then two, then another. The silence broke when Spot licked his lips and spoke.

 

“When I was—“ he started, then shook his head. “I wasn’t raped,” he said adamantly.

 

David’s eyes flew open. The idea of that hadn’t crossed through his mind. When Spot said flashback, David first thought was a fight, which made no sense because they were making out at the time. But _rape?_

 

Spot watched David, waiting. Finally, David said, “I didn’t know that was…on the table.”

 

“I’m just saying,” Spot said, “it wasn’t that bad.”

 

“What wasn’t?” David begged. He heeded more information and he needed it immediately.

 

Spot felt every instinct in him screaming to shut up. He was layered with secrets, they ran deeper than the linings in his organs and speaking out now was like ripping them from deep within himself.

 

He didn’t know how to say it, because he never had said to before. Never considered saying it.

 

“Was it something with your parents?” David asked, voice desperate, “Did they—“

 

“No,” Spot said firmly, “God. No. What do you think of them?”

 

David froze. What did he think of Spot’s parents? He had no evidence that they weren't complete pieces of garbage, and this was no exception. “What then?” he asked.

 

“If I tell you,” Spot ground out, “you are going to forgive me. And you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t forgive me.”

 

“I promise I wont,” David said, “I am very mad at you. You shouldn’t have hit me. That was a super messed up thing to do.”

 

Spot nodded heartily. “Okay,” he said. “You needed an explanation. I’m going to give it to you. You held down my wrist. And that—it made me have a flashback to a time when someone else did that.”

 

He watched David’s mind race. It wasn’t fair, this taking so long to get out. He still hadn’t decided how much he was going to tell David. What could David handle, even?

 

He decided to keep it simple. Except David went ahead without him.

 

“Were you sexually assaulted?” David asked, voice serious. As serious as he could make it while keeping out the desperate tone he knew was inside him. God. How had he not seen this coming? After five months of Spot clamming up every other time he touched him, refusing everything but kissing, how had he not seen this coming?

 

How was he such a failure.

 

Spot did what he always did when he was upset. He put his hands over his eyes and sighed. “Uh,” he said, “I guess so.”

 

The words struck Spot as subpar. He should be more definitive. He should be more in control at this moment than he was. But one moment of crying in McDonalds didn’t make him okay and it didn’t make him sure of what happened and it definitely didn’t make it that he was sure it wasn’t his fault.

 

All he wanted was to feel David’s hands on him, and at the same time he knew it couldn’t happen.

 

David breathed deep. “Okay,” he said. “And me pinning your wrist, it triggered a flashback.”

 

“Blink said….Blink said you should have gotten my permission before doing it.”

 

“Blink? Why are you talking to Blink about this?”

 

“Dude, Blink is a Gender and Women Studies major.”

 

“So?”

 

“So he...he knows about this shit. Do you think it was okay to do that?”

 

Spot’s voice was accusatory for the first time in this conversation. He dropped his hands. He’d been cowed the whole way through, but now there was fire in his eyes and it surprised both of them.

 

“I didn’t know,” David insisted. “If you’d told me, if I had any idea, I would have been so much more careful.”

 

“Maybe we should have been careful in the first place.”

 

David felt like crying. How was he failing so miserably? “God. Spot. I thought I was being careful. I never—ever—questioned that you didn’t want to do anything. I never pressured you. Ever. And you didn’t tell me anything. You never tell me anything.”

 

Because. Even though he recognized now that this was partly his fault, it wasn’t entirely his fault? Right?

 

“Jesus Christ, David, you want an award for not _pressuring_ me? I may not know anything about anything but I know that that’s like, fucking bare minimum.”

 

“That’s not what I’m saying!”

 

“Then what are you saying?”

 

David felt his throat tighten. He would not cry. He would not cry. Not right now. He wasn’t the one who had the right to cry. “It’s so hard,” he said, “It’s so hard to know how to take care of you when you won’t let me know anything about you.”

 

Spot’s hands went back to his eyes. “I’m telling you a lot,” he said quietly.

 

“Now,” David said, “After this terrible thing happened to both of us. And that we both did. I don’t know Spot, it’s just. What are we supposed to do?”

 

He didn’t know exactly what breaking up sounded like, but Spot had a feeling this was it. And it was right, in a way. He was glad David didn’t just plain forgive him. He was surprised, almost. He thought he knew David well enough to predict that he would give up all sense of self and make it all about Spot.

 

But he wasn’t.

 

Spot was proud.

 

It didn’t make it not suck that they were breaking up.

 

“I don’t know how to help you,” David said, “I don’t know anything about this.”

 

“How would you _help me_?” Spot asked. “What exactly would you do?”

 

David threw his hands up. “I don’t know! That’s the whole point! I know nothing about this. So what am I supposed to do?”

 

Spot rubbed his eyes. “You’re breaking up with me because of this?”

 

“I’m not—“ David started then stopped. He was, wasn’t he? He wasn’t planning on doing it right now, but right now was when it was happening. “It’s not because of what happened to you.”

 

“It sounds like it is,” Spot said. “That’s fucked up.”

 

“No it’s not because of that. I’m really sorry that happened to you. I am. But listen. This has been coming. Haven’t you felt it?”

 

“No,” Spot said petulantly, “I thought we were doing good.”

 

David shook his head. “Sometimes we are,” he allowed, “other times. I don’t know. Other times it’s so hard. It shouldn’t be this hard.”

 

They were silent again. This time the silence was heavy and deep. It hurt their skin and they were desperate for one another to break it, but the break didn’t come.

 

Finally Spot said, “What now?”

 

“Maybe we don’t break up,” David said, “Maybe we take a break. I go to Chicago in two days. Maybe we just cool off and see where we are after that?”

 

Spot felt unexpected betrayal. He didn’t plan on going to Chicago but he’d been invited, right? “You’re going without me?”

 

David looked surprised. “You wanted to come?”

 

“No,” Spot forced out. “Denton was okay with it?”

 

David smiled sheepishly. “I called him. On his cell phone. He’s always telling me I can use the number. So I called and asked if I could have a week off and he agreed almost before I finished talking.”

 

Spot swallowed and nodded.

 

“Are you still going to stay at Blink’s tonight?” David asked. “You can stay here. Maybe I’ll say here too.”

 

They were both wondering what they were going to do about their pushed together bed.

 

In the end they both decided to stay in the apartment that night. Blink didn’t say a word. Neither did Swifty, but in a different way. Jack just said, “You figure it out?” and David nodded.

 

They didn’t tell anyone they were breaking up because they weren’t.

 

That night they fell asleep with six inches between them, but when Spot woke up, he was holding David’s arm like it was a teddy bear.

 

In the dark of the room, lacing David’s hand in his, he whispered, the too soon dangerous words.

 

“I love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story isn't over!!!!!!! Note the /? 
> 
> Swifty and I have about equal knowledge of tarot, which is to say next to none. Some mistakes are intentional, the rest aren't! Whoops!
> 
> CW: Lot's of consent talk, talk about what David by holding Spot's wrist down not being okay, referenced to the fact that Spot was sexually assaulted


	13. Blue Apatite

He tried saying goodbye the night before. He really had. They’d barely spoken since their fight, but David was packing his backpack for his trip to Chicago in the bedroom when Spot came in to grab his hoodie. And it struck him that if he stayed out all night with Blink like he was planning, this might be the last time he saw David. Ever.

 

“How long are you going to be with your family?” he asked.

 

“A week,” David said. “Well. A week minus a day on either end on the bus. Five days.”

 

Spot nodded. “Doing anything fun?”

 

David looked up at him, confused. Spot was confused too. He wasn’t sure why he was asking such a dumb question.

 

“We’re just hanging out,” he said, “I just needed to see my family.”

 

That was good. Maybe it would help, seeing his family. Maybe Spot would call him while he was there and tell him he was leaving, and his family would help him feel better about it. Or maybe he wouldn’t care at all.

 

Spot had at most a week to say goodbye to his life at Pulitzer. He didn’t think he’d need all of it.

 

“This was good,” he said, words sounding completely inefficient to his ears. “You. Me.”

 

David fiddled with his backpack zipper. “It was. It was good.”

 

“We went all over this trash island,” Spot said, “And Monster’s Inc.”

 

“And Times Square,” David added. “But Spot. I don’t know. I feel like, those times. I don’t know if there enough?”

 

“What else do you want?”

 

“I don’t know,” David said, “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

 

It’s too late, Spot thought. By the time David was back, Spot would have a new life in Brooklyn.

 

David finished with his backpack and stood up. “I’m going to Swifty’s,” he said. “I guess I’ll see you when I get back.”

 

Spot nodded. He’d call David before he left. He would.

 

That night he and Blink were planning on trying to get into a bar, one that Specs promised didn’t check IDs, but Skittery unexpectedly spoke to them.

 

“I’m going to a show,” he said. “If you promise not to embarrass me, you can come with.”

 

Blink jumped off the couch excitedly but scoffed at the same time. “How would we embarrass you?”

 

“Being yourselves,” Skittery said dully.

 

Blink patted at his rust colored t-shirt and smoothed out his eye patch. “What kind of show is it? Should we dress nicer?”

 

Spot still hadn’t gotten off the couch. He didn’t know that he wanted to go anywhere. Blink turned around and gestured for him to get up. He bent his knees and threw his arms in the air, as though he could force him to stand by moving the air.

 

Skittery craned his neck to look at Spot who was wearing his hoodie and jeans. He rolled his eyes and sighed like the way they dressed was oppressive. “I guess you’ll be fine,” he said.

 

Skittery didn’t warn them until they got there that the show was in a basement in a neighborhood that Spot had never been to before, and a fire marshal six blocks away could tell that they were in occupancy violation.

 

There were people spilling into the street, a haphazard line that Skittery completely bypassed which prompted someone to throw a crushed up cup at his head. Spot couldn’t help but snicker, even as he and Blink followed him and were met with boos and jeering.

 

Skittery nodded to the bouncer who _smiled_ at him and waved him past. “They’re with me!” Skittery yelled and just like that they were in.

 

Spot had never been to a concert of any kind. He went to a play, once, with his middle school but this had nothing to do with that. There were no chairs there were just layers on layers of people yelling, and touching each other and touching Spot.

 

He felt his shoulders rise as people bumped into his back and bumped into him. He was overly aware of his wallet in his pocket and his hands fisting at his sides. Kid Blink kept looking at him.

 

He felt a hand on his neck but when he batted it off he found nothing was there. For a minute he felt like he couldn’t breathe.

 

It didn’t make sense. He’d been in crowds before.

 

Skittery had the same even look he always had, he resolutely led them to the front of the crowd and found a slightly less densely packed area of the room.

 

“What the fuck _, Arthur_?” Spot snapped, “You couldn’t have warned us?”

 

“Warned you what?” Skittery yelled.

 

“Don’t you have a sensory processing disorder?” Spot asked, “How the fuck are you not having a meltdown right now?”

 

Skittery shrugged. “This is the kind of sensory input I can handle!”

 

“Screaming assholes touching you?” Blink whipped his head around, like his Gender and Women studies brain could barely handle what it was recognizing. “Not now!” Spot snapped, “This ain’t about that!”

 

He wished David was there. David would make up an excuse to leave and it would have nothing to do with Spot being a baby and they would walk somewhere for hours and get black coffees then go home and go to sleep.

 

“Do you want to leave?” Blink asked.

 

“We just got here!” Skittery protested.

 

“No,” Spot said. Someone jostled behind him and Spot fought the urge to spin around and deck them. Maybe this would be good for him. Exposure therapy. Or something.

 

“Fucking finally,” Skittery groused. “We’re only here for the opening band anyway. Then you can go home and paint your nails.”

 

The band was one that Spot had never heard off—Lunchbox Bridge? Lunch Lost Parade?—but it was good and fast and loud and Skittery was somehow infectious to be with. For the first time Spot saw him as something besides and angsty asshole. He screamed along with the music and jumped up and down and Blink did too, and eventually, Spot did too. When the opening band finished Blink gestured to Spot to come closer and asked “Leave?”

 

Spot shook his head.

 

“Fucking finally!” Skittery yelled, then someone who knew Skittery came by and excitedly started talking to him. People were doing that all night, coming up to Skittery and talking to him like he wasn’t the world’s biggest asshole. It was weird.

 

What was even weirder was when the show ended, Skittery disappeared. They looked around for him for half an hour, until the club cleared out and finally Skittery texted Blink and Blink laughed and showed Spot the screen.

 

_With a girl. Sorry. Bye._

“Holy shit,” Spot said, “Skittery’s got game.”

 

On the subway Kid Blink acted high, jumping around and talking a mile a minute about the show. “I don’t even like music like that!” he said, “Like at all! But holy shit! That was insane!”

 

Spot nodded.

 

Blink stopped hopping. “Were you okay? You were like, mad in the beginning.”

 

“I’m fine,” Spot said, “It’s not your—your Gender and Women Studies major bullshit.”

 

“Okay,” Blink said easily.

 

Spot had been in crowds before. He’d been on the subway. It never bothered him that much. It was like everything bothered him more now and he didn’t know what to do about it.

 

“David’s leaving today. Tomorrow. Right?”

 

Spot shrugged.

 

“How are you leaving things?”

 

Spot hadn’t told Blink that he and David were taking a break. David had told Swifty and Jack, he’d told Spot that much, so it was only a matter of time before Swifty told Blink. But Spot didn’t want to speak it into reality. Taking a break was too much like breaking up, especially with what Spot was planning to do, and he was doing better living in some level of denial until it was real.

 

His biggest, go-to solution though, for everything, was drinking. So when they got off the subway, they went to a bodega and got a bottle of rum, because all Spot’s rum was in his apartment and Blink had pathetically little alcohol in his apartment.

 

He was still a little drunk when he showed up for Kloppman in the morning. A little. Barely. Not really, at all.

 

He thought of how much David would freak out if he knew that he was showing up to work drunk. It didn’t matter anymore. It didn’t.

 

Kloppman looked up when he came in his office to get his current edition of The Sun.

 

Kloppman was blissfully unaware of Spot’s life being in pieces, and him having only stopped drinking three hours ago and getting no sleep. It was nice, really.

 

It was all fraught and overdrawn and it was good to show up on Monday and have Kloppman look up from his ancient computer and say, “I suppose your life is no longer destroyed.”

 

“Nope,” Spot said. This truth thing that he was trying could only go so far.

 

“Admirable,” Kloppman said, then waved his hands toward this shelf with issues of The Sun. “Go then, read at 1,020 words a minute and then reduce my student’s work to fifty words a piece.”

 

Spot reached up and pulled down the Spring 1995 edition. He’d realized that Klopppman didn’t understand how fast Spot worked, so he’d supplemented his time but catching up on new Psychology textbooks so he’d be prepared for the next semester’s papers. That was his real work after all. Not this college crap. Kloppman didn’t notice a thing.

 

But since he was running away again, he should probably finish his work and that meant not reading the pirated textbook on the DSM and spending his day going through three years of The Sun in a day.

 

Kloppman didn’t comment every time he came into the office to get a new edition off the shelf. He was working on something on his ancient computer or staring wistfully at his decidedly dead fish. Spot didn’t say a word to him either.

 

It wasn’t like he signed a contract with Kloppman. The dude was okay enough with the idea of him never showing up again. He wasn’t sure why he was there today. Maybe because he knew David was leaving, and he didn’t want to be there when he left the apartment. He’d already said goodbye.

 

His work was stalled by reading and rereading a short story about a boy on a farm shooting his dog on his family’s orders, then running away from home. Spot wasn’t sure why he was stuck on it. He’d never had a dog, or a farm, and he’d never had to shoot an animal. But something the patheticness of a boy having to shoot the only thing he loved had him stuck.

 

It was a basic as hell story. Spot knew that. It was an old trope. The person who had written it had probably never been on a farm. He’d probably never had a dog.

 

So there was no good reason for Spot to be slumped down in the student lounge, blinking rapidly as he read the short story over and over.

 

He wasn’t at all drunk when he went into Kloppman’s office and threw the copy of The Sun on his desk.

 

“What the fuck is this?” he asked.

 

Kloppman looked _thrilled._ He sat up quickly and grabbed the edition of The Sun that Spot had thrown at him. He moved faster than Spot had ever seen him move.

 

“Which piece are you talking about?” Kloppman asked.

 

“‘Elmer Springs’ by Julian Montague”

 

Kloppman didn’t even look at the edition, he just nodded. “Yes,” he said, “that one.”

 

“What do you mean, _that one._ Did you do all this so I could read it? Did you plan this?”

 

Kloppman blinked owlishly behind his rimless glasses. “I suppose I expected one of these pieces someday may resonate with you. I didn’t know it would be this one.”

 

“Who the fuck writes about shooting a dog?” Spot demanded. “That’s so fucked up. That’s fucking awful.”

 

“You have read poems and short stories about murder-suicides and rape,” Kloppman pointed out. “This is the first one that has caused you to throw a book at an old man.”

 

“Don’t try to psychoanalyze me,” Spot snapped, “Not you. You’ve been the only person in this fucking school who hasn’t tried to pull this shit on me. It’s not okay. You aren’t allowed to treat me like an experiment.”

 

Kloppman beamed.

 

Spot wanted to punch him in the face.

 

“This is what good writing does,” he said, “It stirs things up in you. I admit, and I apologize, I was hoping that this project would lead you to understand the power of writing. It was an experiment.”

 

He blinked. He wished he still had something in his hands to throw at Kloppman. “I’m not a Creative Writing major,” he snapped, “I’m an Economics major. I don’t have a heart that you can manipulate.”

 

Kloppman nodded. “I admit, I’m not sure how far to push you.”

 

“Push me,” Spot said, “see what happens.”

 

As though he was expecting this, Kloppman turned around and reached into a drawer in his desk. He pulled out a file, and as though he could see into the future, Spot saw what was coming a minute before it came.

 

Kloppman pulled out a piece of paper and read off it.

 

“blue apatite

 

off 2nd avenue

there’s a rock shop

with a window display

polished stones in a

treasure chest

the kind with plastic handles

and white wear points

 

there are piles

cheap cuts reflecting light

stones just precious enough

to be kept in buckets

with faux suede bags

that private school kids

stuff with the shiniest rocks they can find

 

you tell me there’s one like it near your home

with a museum in the basement

and meditation stones by the door

you took the l with your sister

 

i listen

but when you talk

all i hear is wistful envy

of yourself

for the other rock shop

 

i ask you which rock is your favorite

and you point them out

blue slashed with green, $7.99 a bag

you refuse

when i offer to buy them all

 

i would

i promise

i would buy them all

 

if the wistful tone in you

would turn to this rock shop

and one day we’ll be in chicago and you’ll say

there’s a rock shop like this one

just like this one

back home”

 

Spot stared at the dead fish while he read. “You didn’t have to read the whole thing,” he said.

 

Kloppman continued like he hadn’t spoken. “This is a poem that is definitely written by a novice, but a novice with potential. One who understands the effectiveness of storytelling to convey emotion, rather than stating it outright. I asked for a poem about colors, and you gave me a love poem.”

 

“I don’t love them,” Spot said. He was still mad at Kloppman, but having his poem read aloud and hearing his feelings for David just exhausted him.

 

Kloppman raised his whispy eyebrows. “Don’t you?” he asked.

 

“I’m leaving them,” Spot said.

 

“Shame,” Kloppman said, “I don’t suppose you want my advice?”

 

“I don’t,” Spot said.

 

“Are you leaving me, as well?” Kloppman asked. “I have plans for you.”

 

“What plans?” Spot asked.

 

“I was going to help you petition to switch advisors, switch majors, sign up for Creative Writing classes. You would join the staff of The Sun, and you would submit your work, and you would live up to your potential rather than wasting time with this ‘making money’ plan of yours.”

 

Aside from that being totally fucking insane and absolutely not happening, Spot couldn’t help but be insulted that Kloppman thought he could make plans for him without his permission.

 

“You don’t even know me,” Spot said.

 

“I don’t know you,” Kloppman said, “And you are not necessarily extraordinary, I will not lie to you. But I don’t want to lose a student who I see a future for.”

 

Spot shook his head. “You’re just making things up about me. People do this all the time. I don’t talk or emote or whatever, and people put things on me that they want to see. You have to let me go.”

 

“I do?” Kloppman asked, “Or the rock shop person does?”

 

Spot didn’t have an answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter for a couple reasons one of which I'm SICK AGAIN. NEVER BECOME A TEACHER (who am I kidding I know half of you are teachers) 
> 
> I'm guessing this will be 16 chapters based on how this is outlined but don't be super shocked if it's not. 
> 
> rudeflower on tumblr


	14. City of Lights

David read on the bus ride. He read a book called, “Hollow out the Middle: The Rural Brain Drain” which he texted Denton as a possible choice for the Roosevelter Book Club. He read a book about Joan of Arc and he read a book about the history of ceramics, all of which he got as discards from his job at the library.

 

His boss at the library was decidedly less understanding than Denton about him taking a week off which two days notice, but he let him go and promised his shifts were waiting for him when he got back.

 

In Indianapolis, he gave all his books to an older woman who was going to Arkansas who grabbed his face when he gave them to her.

 

“You are a good boy,” she said. Her eye shadow was bright blue and her lipstick had smeared.

 

“Thank you,” David said between her hands.

 

“Everything is going to be okay,” she said, “I promise.”

 

At 3:45 AM the bus arrived at Union Station. David had told his family he’d be fine, and he’d take the L home by himself, but Sarah was there, still in her Walgreens uniform, waving cheerily at him as he came off the bus.

 

He grinned at her. “What are you doing here?” he asked, running up to hug her.

 

Sarah hugged him back tightly. “I was up, I was finishing a code! Thought I’d come and greet you.”

 

"You didn't have to do that."

 

"I don't have to do anything, but I do it all anyway." 

 

They took the Red line home and caught the 155 bus and were in front of their apartment by 5:25. The sun was still down, but it occurred to David that after he dropped off his backpack he could go down to the lake and watch the sun come up.

 

If only he wasn’t dead exhausted and needed to sleep.

 

Sarah unlocked their apartment door because David didn’t know where his keys to the apartment were. They weren’t on his key ring and he didn’t realize it until he was in front of their apartment door.

 

It was dark inside, and he could hear his father snoring on the opposite side of the room in the bed his parents shared. In the dark, he saw a new outline and he turned to Sarah.

 

“Is that a couch?” he whispered. It was right up against the side of his parent's bed, facing the TV on the kitchen counter.

 

Sarah nodded proudly. “I’m making payments on it at the Rent-a-Center,” she whispered. “Great, right?”

 

David nodded. It was great. They hadn’t had a couch his entire life, and it always felt weird, watching library DVDs sitting at the kitchen table or on their parent's bed. It didn’t change that the apartment was still small, possibly too small for an additional piece of furniture, but Sarah was proud of it.

 

She took his elbow and led him into their room. This time his bed didn’t have anything on it, but the floor around it was covered in sporting equipment and large plastic bins that he climbed over as he went to bed and was asleep in seconds.

 

He was home.

 

He slept fitfully, waking up at seven and eight when Sarah and Les woke up from school and work respectively. Shortly after Les woke up, David was lying in bed on his phone debating whether to text Spot.

 

Because he would want to know if Spot had traveled across the country whether he arrived safely. Had Spot ever traveled across the country? Or anywhere further than Long Island?

 

He did text Jack. And after some consideration, he texted Swifty too.

 

Mama knocked twice on the door then stuck her head in, She smiled warmly at David.

 

“Oh, sweetheart! You’re awake!”

 

David sat up but didn’t get out of bed. “Hey Mama,” he said sleepily, “Did you miss me?”

 

Mama turned sideways to get to his bed and shuffled between his and Les’ beds. She leaned forward and gave him a tight hug. She ran her hand over his hair and breathed deeply.

 

“My love,” she said, “I am so happy to see you.”

 

“It hasn’t been that long,” David said.

 

“Six months!” Mama said, “Six months after eighteen years of constant contact. It’s almost too much for me.” She pulled away and sat down on Les’ bed, arranging her knees so they weren’t hitting his. “Did you have a good trip?”

 

“I did,” David said, “I was less startling to see rural landscapes the second times around.”

 

“We took you down to Springfield, you’ve seen rural before on the way!”

 

“It’s different for hours and house like that,” David said. “It was easy, though. I ate a lot of Subway.”

 

“Did you meet anyone on the bus?”

 

“I met a woman who said her son used to work out at our JCC when he lived here in grad school. She was convinced I must know him.”

 

“Did you?”

 

David smiled, “No. And I don’t remember his name, so I couldn’t tell it do you.”

 

Mama clucked. “You should have written it down.”

 

It was just like her to think that in a city of 2.7 million people, they would know someone just because they went to the same JCC. And respectfully chide David for not writing down the name.

 

Mama sighed and smoothed his hair. “Les is about to go to camp,” she said, “Would you walk him?”

 

David blinked. “What?”

 

Mama stood up and shuffled over towards the door. “I have to go to work, otherwise I’d walk him myself. Sarah is at work and Papa is still asleep.”

 

David looked around like the answer to this would lie in his room somewhere. Les and Sarah’s room. He was exhausted, he’d only gotten home a few hours ago. He figured he could sleep in like he did over Christmas.

 

“I wouldn’t ask, David,” Mama said gently, “Except you’re the only one who can do it.”

 

“What have you done when I haven’t been here?” David asked.

 

Mama gestured lightly to the other side of the wall where Les was probably doing his ten-minute flossing routine. “He walks on his own. But I don’t like it.”

 

David wanted nothing more than to lie down and go back to sleep. Les was twelve. David was definitely walking places on his own when he was twelve. Sarah too. And he’d only gone to sleep less than three hours ago. But he couldn’t say any of that to his mom. He got up and walked Les to camp.

 

“This will probably be my last year of camp,” Les said as they walked. “You and Sarah started working when you were a little older than me.” David wanted to shoot it down immediately, but he knew it was possible. Les continued, “Maybe not though, because Mama’s working now, and Sarah’s got a good job.”

 

“Maybe not,” David agreed, “And I have money now, and I send it home.”

 

“Not in a while!” Les said, jumping up to hit the awning of a bakery as they passed. He was much too short to hit it.

 

David laughed even though it wasn’t funny. “How do you know that?”

 

“Cause,” he said, “Mama always kicks me out of our room to talk to you when she’s asking you for money.”

 

“I didn’t know that.”

 

“Well she does,” Les said, “It’s annoying. I have stuff to do, you know?”

 

Les waved goodbye as he ran into the JCC for his summer camp. David considered going inside, saying hello to the staff he knew, maybe visiting the classrooms he went to for after-school programs. But it was full of kids and families who belonged there, and David didn’t, anymore. So he walked down the street back to his apartment and passed out for four more hours.

 

When he woke up at two, he had a ton of texts. Most from Jack, and one from Spot.

 

_You there?_

Fast as he could, David shot off a reply.

 

_Yes. I arrived in the middle of the night. I just woke up._

It was a lie, kind of a lie, but he thought that if Spot knew that his mother had woken him up to walk Les three blocks, he’d have something to say about it. David thought he might have something to say about it himself, but he couldn’t bring himself to.

 

_Good. Glad you didn’t die._

_Me too. U good?_

_Yes._

_?? Any details?_

_No._

David sighed. He shouldn’t have expected anything, given how little information Spot gave him when they _weren’t_ on a break. Still, he wasn’t sure what he expected but maybe he hoped for something. Like maybe “I miss you.” Or something.

 

To be fair, David didn’t say that either.

 

He went into the living room where his dad was reading in bed, fully dressed.

 

“Hey Papa,” he said.

 

Papa beamed at him. “David,” he said, “Welcome home.”

 

David rubbed some sleep out of his eyes. “Do we have eggs?” he asked.

 

Papa shook his head. “I believe your sister used the last of them making hardboiled eggs for her lunch and your brother’s. You can make toast.”

 

David didn’t want toast.

 

“Do you want to go out to breakfast?” he asked.

 

Papa smiled. “Yes,” he said, “I would love to take you out to breakfast.”

 

“No,” David said, “I’m taking you out to breakfast.”

 

“No, David—”

 

“No. Dad. Let me take you out to breakfast. I owe you that much.”

 

Papa lifted his hands as if in surrender and got to work pulling on his jacket. David quickly got dressed and ready and by the time he was done, Papa’s jacket was on and they were ready to go.

 

They went to a diner with stain glass lights and window displays and buttery eggs. Declan used to take David there after tournaments, but David had never been there with his family.

 

Papa studied the menu and when the server came to take their order he handed the menu to her. “Toast with butter,” he said, “And a black coffee.”

 

David frowned. “Dad, get something else.”

 

“What’s wrong with toast?” Papa asked.

 

“We can make that at home. Get something nice,” David insisted. He looked at the server, “I’ll have chocolate chip pancakes with scrambled eggs and sausage. He’ll have the same.”

 

Papa smiles ruefully and shook his head. “Fried eggs,” he corrected, “hard.”

 

It was more than David usually ordered. Maybe he was making a point.

 

“You know we’re proud of you,” Papa said, “working so hard in New York. We’re very impressed.”

 

“Thanks,” David said, “I am working hard.”

 

They talked for a little while about his mom’s new job, about Les, about the neighbors dying. Both of them. Within a week. Weird. His dad methodically ate each item one at a time, cutting his pancakes into small pieces and ignoring the syrup.

 

“I admit,” Papa said during a lull, “I expected that Spike would be with you when you came to visit us.”

 

“Spot,” David said, “Why don’t you guys ever get his name right?”

 

“Perhaps because it’s _Spot_ ,” Papa said, “You still have not explained that.”

 

“It’s his name,” David said, “It’s his real, parent given name.”

 

“What kind of people are his parents?” Papa asked, genuinely curious.

 

“I don’t know,” David admitted. Then, “We’re on a break.”

 

“Ah,” Dad said, “I’m sorry to hear that. He seemed to make you happy.”

 

David was a little surprised. “He did?”

 

“He did. You always lit up when you talked about him. You two seemed to have so many adventures, exploring New York together. I admit, you mother and I were a little nervous about you living with someone you were in a relationship, but you talked about making dinners together. Maybe it was odd that he never would come talk to us, that worried me. You two seemed too serious for him to not be willing to meet your parents. But you seemed to fit well with him.”

 

David was surprised that Papa had even put that much thought into his relationship with Spot. He supposed he was his father, and that’s what fathers did, but still.

 

They went home where no one was. His mother was at work and his sister was at work and Les was at a friend’s, and his dad needed to nap. He read and waited. Finally his mother and sister got home within half an hour of each other and yelled and hugged him, even though Sarah had seen him the night before.

 

Mama pulled him down to the kitchen table. “Sit, sit,” she said. “We didn’t get to talk this morning. I want to hear all about your job, about Spot, about everything!”

 

David laughed. “I talk to you almost every day, Mama! There’s nothing new to tell you.”

 

Papa cleared his throat. The least subtle thing he’d ever done. David looked over at where Sarah was boiling water for potatoes. “Um,” he said, “Spot and I are taking a break.”

 

Mama made a distressed sound. “Oh honey,” she said. “Why?”

 

_I made him have a flashback and he hit me. He has all these issues and refuses to let me help him with them._

“We just are,” David said.

 

Mama accepted this and Sarah made potato soup that was significantly less watery than it had been in the past. She even made risotto which David had never had before moving to New York.

 

Les came slamming into the apartment at eight o’clock, looking between the empty table and the rest of them watching TV on the new couch. “Did you save me food?” he asked.

 

“Les,” Mama said, “Say hello to your brother.”

 

“Hi David,” Les said distractedly, “is there food?”

 

“I’ll warm it up for you,” David offered, not particularly hurt by Les’ lackluster greeting. Emoting was never his little brother’s strong suit.

 

They watched movies on Sarah’s new Netflix account with her Google thingy. It was a new experience to be able to choose a movie on a whim, rather than check the library catalog and make a trip there and hope their old DVD player worked. They watched Homeward Bound and Moana and they were about to start a third movie when Papa announced he had to go to bed.

 

Just like that, the night ended.

 

They quickly turned off the TV and waited for each other to finish brushing their teeth and showering—each of them took five-minute showers while the others waited—before finally, everyone went to bed. David had forgotten how the entire night ended when his father had to go to bed. He was used to just having Spot to schedule with. Admittedly he had had more than one thought about how Spot could learn from the brisk Jacobs shower routine—waiting an hour to pee was something he wouldn’t miss this week—but he hadn’t missed having to go to bed entirely because of someone else’s schedule.

 

* * *

 

 

The next day everyone left again. Even Dad left for an al-anon meeting in the suburbs. So David dialed an old number.

 

“Declan?” he said, “It’s David. I’m in town.”

  

They decided to meet downtown. Actually, David suggested it. He’d spent barely enough time downtown, but he had money for the L, and Manhattan walking legs. And he didn’t want to do it alone.

 

He’d learned it was better to do it with someone else.

 

Declan’s family had moved to the south suburbs, so they met at Ogilvie in front of the Garrett’s popcorn. Declan’s white-blond hair was pulled into a ponytail and he was wearing a floral button-up shirt.

 

Declan lit up at the sight of him and pulled him into a long hug. When David pulled away, Declan caught his hand and squeezed it. It was more public affection than Spot had shown him in months.

 

Declan was familiar as his old apartment, though at the same time he felt alien to David. The last time he’d talk to Declan was graduation. They’d messaged on Facebook some since, but this was their first time together.

 

It wasn’t cheating. It wasn’t. They were on a break, and David wasn’t going to do anything.

 

Still, he felt like he should text Spot to let him know. Or text him to make sure he was alive.

 

“So!” Declan said cheerily, “Millennium Park? The Art Institute? State Street?”

 

David thought of how he and Spot had talked about going to Millennium Park. He didn’t know if it would ever happen. But he couldn’t do it. That would be too much like cheating.

 

“Um,” David said, “We could go to—“

 

He couldn’t think of a single place he wouldn’t rather go to with Spot than with Declan.

 

“I need something for my blood sugar,” Declan said, gesturing to the general area of his insulin pump. “I left my snacks on the train. So, is a café okay?”

 

David nodded heartily. He and Spot didn’t go to cafés. They went to bodegas and diners. A café would be just fine.

 

Declan walked slightly ahead of him as they walked, looking back at David and smiling as he went. He moved completely differently than Spot. There was nothing threatening about the jaunty way he moved down the streets of the loop, dodging between business people and tourists. He never once mentioned who would be easy to mug, or stepped away when David stepped too close.

 

Once Declan’s blood sugar was in order—in a café with gluten-free muffins and frothy coffee drinks—Declan smiled at him and said, “So! Big college guy!”

 

“I’m not a big college guy,” David effaced, “and you’re in college too!”

 

“Olive-Harvey is a community college!”

 

“Yeah, but you’re going to transfer! That was always your plan. Maybe you could—“ David stopped himself. He didn’t want Declan to come to Pulitzer. “You could go anywhere,” he said instead.

 

Declan smiled and asked, "So what's your major? Pre-law?"

 

David frowned. "Pre-law?" he asked, "I was never going to be Pre-law."

 

"Seriously?" Declan said. He shrugged. "Okay. I mean, you gotta do something with that gift you have. Not everyone can stun with their words and make people cry wit ha speech. You've got something special. I hope you're using it."

 

Huh. He wasn't, at all. He wasn't even thinking about things using his oratory skills. The majors he let himself consider were all different from Debate. Maybe he should consider...not Pre-law. But something."

 

"What about you?" David asked, "What are you studying?"

 

"It's a community college, David," Declan said, "I'm majoring in relearning things I already learned in my sophomore year of high school."

 

David couldn't help but bristle. He felt like he knew nothing when he went to college, he scrambled to learn every branch of every twig of every piece of what college meant that seemed to come naturally to his classmates. But Declan was an AP student who never missed school and David wasn't. 

 

"You've always been smart," David said. 

 

Declan smiled and said, “Thank you.” He didn’t shrug. He didn’t change the topic. He didn’t abruptly turn the focus back onto David. He took the compliment and let it settle.

 

It was novel.

 

Even when he was with his ex, all he could think about was Spot.

 

Would Spot someday be his ex?

 

He didn’t think he would ever meet up with Spot for a day downtown if they broke up. He wasn’t sure they could ever look at each other at the Roosevelter meetings. Breaking up with Declan was easy. It was embarrassing, because he was dumped for being too busy. Something he had no control over. But they were both on the debate team, and they still spent time together. It was easy enough. David didn’t exactly see it coming, but it didn’t make him want to cry when he occasionally thought about the idea that he and Declan wouldn’t be together forever.

 

He and Declan were different from him and Spot. They didn’t explore the city. They didn’t lie in bed together. They didn’t cook together. They didn’t slide down the hallway together. Watching Declan talk about his classes, David couldn’t remember _what_ they did together.

 

“So,” Declan said, “Are you seeing anyone?”

 

“Yes,” David said, “I am.”

 

He took the L home. David cut it off early because he didn’t want to see any of the sights downtown with Spot, and he still had hope. He had to have hope. Being with Declan just highlighted that what he had with Spot—tense and odd as it was—was rare and to be cherished and he needed it to continue.

 

It was crowded and he decided to skip the bus to West Rogers Park and instead walk in the humid twilight. He was walking past a familiar floral shop when he felt his phone vibrate at his hip.

 

It was Spot.

 

It had never been Spot.

 

They’d never talked on the phone.

 

David answered. “Hello?”

 

Spot didn’t reply immediately and David almost counted it as a but dial, but Spot said, “Hi,” after a minute.

 

He stopped walking. “Hi?” he asked, “What? Spot, what’s going on?”

 

There was static on the line. “I’m just calling you.”

 

“You never call me.”

 

“Sorry,” Spot said, uncharacteristically cowed. “I just wanted to say hey. Um. A lot has happened in the last two days? And I just wanted to say. Hi.”

 

“Hi,” David said flatly, “You’ve said that. Listen, Spot I’ve been thinking a lot about us and—”

 

“Do you remember when I told Racetrack about us? And I disappeared for a few days?”

 

David frowned. This was old news. It had happened in January and they fought about Spot not answering his texts for two days, but it was over now. “I didn’t know you disappeared because you told Racetrack.”

 

“I thought Racetrack was going to attack me,” Spot said, “because I’d been attacked by my roommates who thought I was gay. When I was thirteen. In a group home. It took Racetrack finding me and convincing me in that fucking longwinded way that he does that he wasn’t going to….to fucking come at me. That he didn’t give a shit because he’s such a self-absorbed fuck my business means nothing to him. And I _still_ didn’t believe he wouldn’t come at me. I didn’t sleep for a week.”

 

David’s heart pounded. “That’s what you meant when—“

 

“Yeah,” Spot cut him off. “So that’s why—a lot of things. For me, growing up? Being gay was one of the most dangerous things I could be. Not just potentially. Most of the time, I make it like it didn’t happen, but then that thing with us…when you…”

 

“I’m so sorry,” David begged, “If I’d known, I would have been so much more careful. I promise.”

 

“You said that already,” Spot said, sounding a bit amused. “I’m just saying. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the way things have gone down. Not just the last week, but since it began. I wasn’t clear with you. I don’t know if you remember when we first moved to the Lodging House and I wouldn’t talk to anyone? Everyone is a threat to me. Everyone. The fact that I trust you at all is fucking…it’s everything, okay? I’m messed up, but it’s not because of you. I’m not closeted because I’m ashamed of you. You’re the best thing in my life. I lo—being with you was amazing.”

 

It felt like goodbye. It really, really felt like goodbye. “What’s going on, Spot?” David asked. Then he heard in the background, _5:14 to Philadelphia now boarding._ Where was he? “Spot? Where are you? Are you going somewhere?”

 

“I’m just saying,” Spot continued, “None of it was your fault.”

 

“Yes, it was,” David said, “Spot. I’m not taking no responsibility. Listen—”

 

“I gotta go,” Spot said.

 

“Spot!”

 

“Talk later.”

 


	15. Maybe

He was friends with Kid Blink.

 

That much he now knew.

 

The day David went to Chicago, Blink showed up at the English building. Spot heard him before he saw him. He was bouncing a rubber ball and walking down Kloppman’s hallway and Spot jumped off the couch in the lounge because Kloppman didn’t make that sound and he and Kloppman were almost always the only people on this floor.

 

He grabbed his laptop and stuck his head in the hallway then rolled his eyes when he realized it was just Blink in one of his red t-shirts, focused intently on his yellow rubber ball.

 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Spot asked.

 

Blink looked up and broke into a grin. “Hey pal!” he said, then ran down the hall, skidding to a stop in front of Spot. “I figured you were done at five, because you’re a regular middle-class puncher now. So, yeah. You done? We get milkshakes?”

 

Spot looked down the hall at Kloppman’s office. He was actually usually done at 4:30, but he’d stayed longer to finish the Winter 2000 edition. At this rate he was finishing five years a day, so he’d be done by Thursday. He still felt like he had to say something to Kloppman now, given the meeting they’d had earlier. He wanted to squash Kloppman’s fantasy that Spot was about to start smoking cloves and go to open mic nights.

 

He was all about squashing fantasies these days. It seemed to be the only thing he was capable of.

 

“Hold on,” Spot said. He went back to the lounge and grabbed his backpack and stuck it in. “I need to talk to Kloppman.”

 

“Who’s Kloppman?”

 

“The old man who eats soup alone in the caf.”

 

“Ohhhh.”

 

Spot walked down the hall and wasn’t surprised to find Kloppman still in his office. Still staring at his dead fish. He was always there before Spot, even when he arrived early, and stayed after Spot left. Spot had a feeling that the job was the main thing in his life. Maybe his wife was dead. Maybe his ungrateful kids lived in California. He probably lived in a rent-controlled apartment in the Upper West Side and had a cat who may or may not be dead.

 

Not that he put that much thought into Kloppman.

 

Kloppman looked up when he came in without knocking.

 

“Shall I read you your other three poems?” Kloppman joked.

 

Spot didn’t smile, even though he knew he was supposed to.

 

“I’m going to be done on Thursday,” he said.

 

“You’re moving quickly,” Kloppman observed.

 

“Kind of,” Spot said, “So I’ll be gone on Thursday.”

 

Kloppman pursed his lips. “Gone?” he asked. “Gone in what sense?”

 

“I’m dropping out,” Spot said, “I’m leaving. I have a business that supports me like a full-time job, and I’m moving to Brooklyn.”

 

“A business?”

 

“Yes,” Spot said, “So I’m not just some cheese eating poet, like you think I am. I am a cold-hearted Economics major.” One who hated Economics and the only Economics class he took. Not that it mattered anymore.

 

“Well,” Kloppman said, “This is disappointing. Is school too expensive? Can I help you find scholarships?”

 

It hadn’t occurred to Spot that Kloppman didn’t know he was a Roosevelter. They lived together, they ate together, sometimes it felt like it was tattooed on their foreheads. For better or for worse, the way it was set up made it almost public knowledge who they were.

 

“I was a Rooseveleter,” Spot said.

 

“Ah,” Kloppman said, “You’ve struggled.”

 

Spot blew out a deep breath. “That don’t make me an artist either.”

 

Kloppman swiveled in his chair. “I hope you let me take you out to lunch on Thursday,” he said, “As a thank you.”

 

“No,” Spot said.

 

Kloppman hummed. “You know, I have readings at my apartment. I don’t invite students, but you will no longer be a student. If you keep writing, you should come. You don’t have to read, just listen. You do know how to listen, don’t you?”

 

Spot rolled his eyes. “I don’t see myself doing that.”

 

He fiddled for a pen then found a receipt and wrote something down. “Something tells me you don’t have a father,” he said, “I’m not offering to be your father, but if you need someone to give you some frank advice or…I suppose that’s all I’m good for…give me a buzz.”

 

“Jesus Christ,” Spot said, “You just say whatever you want, don’t you?”

 

“I’m an old man,” Kloppman said, handing him the receipt, “I’m allowed.”

  

* * *

 

 

He wasted an evening with Blink. He should have been looking for apartments in Brooklyn. He only had three days to get out of Badger Building and find somewhere to live. That was damn impossible in Brooklyn, even for Spot Conlon. He could stay in the motel he and Boots stayed in during the winter. Or maybe a different motel. Maybe.

 

Maybe he didn’t need to experience finding someone OD’d in the hallway any more times in his life.

 

He didn’t know if he was alone in the city, aside from the Roosevelters. And Boots. Boots was most important. But there were other kids he knew, on the street. There was the guy he sold wallets to, and the guy he sold wallets to after that. But other kids disappeared after a time, going home or getting picked up or just plain disappearing. They knew who to look out for, Spot kept them away from Boots. It was his job. Other kids didn’t have him. He couldn’t save everyone, but he could save Boots.

 

Other kids resorted to other things to make money, things Spot couldn’t do, and most couldn’t lift wallets the way he could. The ones who did got caught. The adults he knew on the street were either ruthless or impossible to picture surviving.

 

He was pretty sure most of those people were dead or in prison.

 

None of them could help him find an apartment.

 

He wasn’t sure why he was thinking about that, at all.

 

Blink convinced him to see a movie and then woke him up when he fell asleep in the middle of Spiderman. He smacked Blink in the face when he touched him, but Blink just said, “Sorry!” and kept watching the movie.

 

When he went back to the apartment it was empty. He knew it would be empty, but that didn’t make it easier. He knew the answer was to drink until he passed out, but he needed to be sharp in the morning so he could research apartments, so he put on his hoodie and lay in the dark for hours until he fell into a torn sleep for a few hours.

 

Sleeping alone was alien now.

 

He missed David. He never shared a bed with someone before David, and the first couple times they did it he lay stiffly in bed, waiting. For what, he didn’t know because he knew David would never hurt him. He was almost sure of it. Eventually one night he broke down and fell asleep and woke up with his head on David’s chest, his heartbeat kicking under his ear. It wasn’t a landslide into familiarity after that, but one day at a time he fell asleep closer to David until one day it became harder to sleep without David than with him.  

 

He’d have to get used to it.

 

In the morning he discovered that Brooklyn had gotten disgustingly expensive. He knew he couldn’t have roommates, no one else in the world was like Racetrack or David, and it was too big a risk. But even renting a room with roommates in Bushwick cost a thousand dollars and required that it be a third of his income, which it was not. Even during finals season. Quick Papers wasn’t doing as well as he thought if he couldn’t afford to live in his home.

 

How the fuck did his parents pay rent?

 

He tried the worse parts of Brooklyn but found that in the three years since he was pilfering through bakery dumpsters, the property values had shot the fuck up and he probably didn’t have enough money now to even go through bakery dumpsters. Hipsters were probably paying to go through bakery dumpsters. Hell, they were probably paying to sleep on the streets to have an “authentic experience.”

 

How was he locked out of living in his own home?

 

From his apartment in Manhattan, he hated Brooklyn for a moment.

 

His fantasy of owning property in Brooklyn with a pantry full of food didn’t look possible anymore. Without a college degree, all he had was Quick Papers and there was only so far that could go. The business had boomed since he went to college, but no one got rich writing phony papers. Student rich was different than real adult rich and without the Roosevelt scholarship paying for his housing and food and books, what the fuck did he have? He didn’t even have David.

 

No.

 

Spot closed his laptop and got off the couch. He wouldn’t wallow in self-pity. He’d figured out how to survive the streets of this city at thirteen with a nine-year-old in tow. Now he had money and checks with his name on them and a state ID and he wouldn't give up just because housing in Brooklyn was a fucking nightmare.

 

He had to run away.

 

There was no other choice.

 

Was it really running away if he was nineteen and no one expected him to be anywhere? It wasn’t like he was thirteen and—it wasn’t the same.

 

He emailed a few assholes who posted rooms for rent that he could afford. Barely. He could always kill his roommates if they tried to fuck with him.

 

It wasn’t ideal but he didn’t have a choice.

He knew that David would be home by now. In the small apartment without a couch that he talked about all the time. He loved his family so much, sometimes Spot thought he could never love anything else. Not Pulitzer, not his friends, not—nothing else. It wasn’t fair to think that way, but David’s home seemed to envelop him somehow and even though Spot was the one leaving, he was afraid that David wasn’t coming back.

 

David wouldn’t want to hear from him.

 

Instead, he texted Blink and realized a second too late that it was sixty fifteen in the morning and he might have woken Blink up. A second later he decided he didn’t care because it was Blink’s fault if he had the sound on his phone. He got in the shower and when he got out an hour later he had a twenty-minute old text from Blink saying that he’d meet him at Tibby’s in a few minutes.

 

At Tibby’s, Blink ordered a bagel, and scrambled eggs and sausage and bacon and fries. Spot didn’t order anything because he had to go to the English building soon.

 

“Wouldn’t that old man understand you wanting to be late on account of eating breakfast?” Blink asked through a mouthful of something unidentifiable.

 

“I don’t know,” Spot said.

 

Blink chewed quickly and swallowed his food. “So can I float something by you?” he asked.

 

“Whatever.”

 

“It’s about the thing. Your thing.”

 

Spot looked behind them at the tourists eating breakfast. What the fuck was Blink thinking, bringing this up in public. When he looked back at Blink he had his hands up in surrender, but there was a business card in one. Spot reached out and snatched it out of his hand.

 

_Emory Isaacson MSW_

Spot stopped reading after that initialism. He knew what it meant, and what office she was from. His gaze turned Blink, murderous. “You told someone about me?”

 

“No,” Blink said, immediate and firm. “I didn’t tell her. I just took her card when I was in the office yesterday. I haven’t told anyone and I won’t. Even if I was a mandated reporter—“

 

Jesus Christ, Spot thought he was done with that phrase.

 

“—I don’t think this counts because it happened before you were a student here. But that doesn’t mean one our advocates can’t talk to you about it.”

 

“No one at this university gives a shit about something that happened in a group home in Brooklyn, six years ago,” Spot said quickly. “I’m fine. I’m totally fucking fine.”

 

Blink gave him a wan look that Spot was sure was totally unearned. “I can see you’re downsliding,” he said, “And I’m no fucking expert. But having a physical flashback and having it disrupt your relationship at the very least is something worth talking about. The Women’s Center cares—”

 

“Except I’m not a _fucking woman,”_ Spot hissed, his face hot.

 

Kid Blink shook his head. “Yeah,” he said, “the office name sucks. But sexual violence happens to people of all genders and—“

 

Spot got up as fast as he could and walked swiftly out of Tibby’s. Blink made a sound and was right behind him. Spot spun when they were a block away.

 

“Don’t you fucking ruin Tibby’s for me my making me talk about this shit,” he spat, “There’s no point to it. It’s over. I don’t want you testing out your new advocacy shit on me either. This happens to what, one in seven people?”

 

“More,” Kid Blink said.

 

“Fine. Go meet seven more people and pull this shit on them. I’m done. Don’t follow me.”

 

It didn’t matter anyway. He was leaving Manhattan. Tibby’s was going to just be a memory and now it would be a ruined one buy he could handle that. There had been more things before this, late nights with David falling asleep at the table. Splitting a plate of fries while taking turns quizzing each other on their toughest subjects. Usually Spot quizzing David because David never could get him to make flashcards.

 

“Flashcards are proven to be the most effective,” David sang at three in the morning. They were in a booth in the back and David had a midterm the next day so they were going over classes of monkeys for his Anthropology class.

 

“I’m not a nerd,” Spot said, unable to keep a smile off his face. “I don’t need post its and highlighters to remember stuff.”

 

“Um, I don’t _need_ those things, I want them,” David said, “Don’t you want colors on your notes? Not only does it help you remember things, it just makes me feel like a real college student. Like deeply legit. You could be legit too.” He waved a neon yellow highlighter in Spot’s face, and he grabbed it, feeling the warmth of David’s skin as he did. He wanted to be sitting next to David, to feels their legs together and maybe even put his head on his shoulder. Some part of him, back then and even today, thought that it might be possible someday.

 

That night he settled for sliding his fingers over David’s wrist and taking in the way David’s eyes widened. He gently pressed the tips of his fingers against David’s wrist before pulling away, highlighter in hand.

 

They stayed there for another hour. David for once didn’t have work or class in the morning, and Jack wasn’t there when they got back to David’s room, so Spot climbed into bed with him, shedding only his shoes. David hummed happily and pulled him close.

 

It was easy to transition from public them to private them. No couple did this in public, no matter our straight or out they were. He pressed into David, inhaling him. He loved being close to him like this, when there was no threat or other people and he knew he could trust David, or consider it anyway. David laughed and held him close.

 

“You’re such a Pan troglodyte,” David said, kissing him on the top of his head. “So cuddly.”

 

“ _You’re_ the Pan troglodyte,” Spot said into David’s chest, “Such a fucking nerd.”

 

The memory stayed with Spot all day. Even as he went to random apartments in Brooklyn and discovered how disgusting and odorous strangers apartments could be, and how disgusting and odorous strangers could be. He went to four different apartments after finishing with Kloppman but the only person he could remotely consider living with smiled tightly and said, “I’ll call you,” which was a major fuck you.

 

It was hopeless.

 

When he got home he researched motel and figured out he could afford to stay in one for a week after Thursday which would give him more time to find a place. He slept on the couch because he didn’t want to sleep in the bed another night without David. He would be different, he decided, when it was a bed that he hadn’t shared with David. He would be able to handle it.

 

 

The next day at the English building he spent all morning and afternoon finishing off everything until Summer 2015. He worked through lunch and didn’t make eye contact with Kloppman as he went to his office to pick up new editions. They talked too much the day before and Kloppman basically offered to be his…something…and that was too much for eye contact today.

 

At three he went into the office where Kloppman was staring at the dead fish.

 

“Your fish is dead.”

 

Kloppman sighed. “I know,” he said, “There’s not much I can do about it.”

 

“Except flush it down the toilet,” Spot suggested.

 

He hummed. “I only have two more days with you, correct?”

 

“Yep. Think you’re going to get rid of it by Thursday?”

 

“Too much loss for one week,” Kloppman decided.

 

“Can I leave?” Spot said. “I’m supposed to meet my brother.”

 

Kloppman waved him off. “Just come back tomorrow, understand?”

 

“I’m meeting with my scholarship advisor in the morning. But I’ll come after.”

 

“Come,” Kloppman insisted, “I need you to finish this work.”

 

“I will,” Spot promised, “I’m going to finish.”

 

* * *

 

 

Aunt Elane answered the door in her bathrobe. It was insane. Spot had never seen her in less than pressed on makeup and ironed floral blouses. But today her nose was red and she pulled tightly to her bathrobe and gestured for him to come in.

 

Spot walked in, trying not to think too much on the possibility that he wouldn’t see this place for a long time. It took so much for him to prove to Aunt Elane that he was responsible enough to be around Boots, and being a college dropout wasn’t helping with that. He could lie to Aunt Elane, pretend he was still in college and still with David but he didn’t think he could maintain that. He probably could, but he didn’t want to poison the well by lying to her.

 

He didn’t have to tell her right away though. It could wait until after he had his time with Boots.

 

Boots jumped out of his room, landing on two feet. His hands were out for balance and he looked like a dancer or something. He was so tall now, almost as tall as Spot. He’d be taller, Aunt Elane told him once. Spot was glad he hadn’t stunted him too badly.

 

Boots ran over to him and high fived him. “Ice cream? Or hot dogs?”

 

“Both,” Spot said.

 

They spent a good two hours sitting in a park eating two rounds if ice cream and hot dogs. When the ice cream melted Spot got more, and when Boots mentioned still being hungry he went to a bodega and got chips.

 

They’d spent a lot of time in parks, before. Parks and libraries were the only places Spot could find where they didn’t’ have to spend money to exist. He wasn’t as charmed by parks and David was, not after some of the bullshit he’d dealt with in them. But Boots wanted to be in a park, so they’d be in a park.

 

“Hey, are you excited for school?” he asked.

 

“I’m going to get a girlfriend first thing,” Boots said confidently, “First thing.”

 

“I bet you are.”

 

“I am!”

 

“I know,” Spot said, “And you’ll make a lot of friends.”

 

“I already have friends. I have Peter and Pedro—those are the same name in different languages, you know? That’s funny, huh?”

 

Spot nodded. He had friends. He had Aunt Elane.

 

He would be okay.

 

After calling Aunt Elane to make sure it was okay, he dropped Boots off at a friend’s building and went back to the apartment. He climbed the seven stories to her apartment and knocked on the door.

 

She answered the door after a minute, still in a bathrobe looking confused. She frowned and stepped aside, letting him in.

 

“I’m making soup,” she said. “Do you want a glass of water?” Like they had agreed to this, like they’d planned that he was coming over. He followed her into the kitchen where she went right to a pot on the stove. It smelled like onion and garlic and celery. Spot knew it would probably taste amazing because Aunt Elane was good at the things she did.

 

“I need to tell you something,” Spot said to Aunt Elane’s back. He saw her freeze and slowly turn around, steeling herself for something. Spot didn’t know what she thought would be that bad.

 

“What, then?” Aunt Elane asked.

 

Spot hadn’t said the words out loud to anyone but Kloppman so far, and this was different. He liked Kloppman, maybe, and he didn’t like Aunt Elane, but she counted more somehow. “I’m leaving,” he said.

 

“Leaving,” Aunt Elane repeated.

 

“I’m dropping out,” Spot said, “Moving to Brooklyn. I haven’t found a place yet, but I’m staying in a motel until I get one.”

 

Aunt Elane’s face crumbled. “Not _the_ motel?” she asked. Spot didn’t know why she looked so distressed. And he didn’t know that Boots had told her about the motel. Sure it would suck if Boots had to go back, but Spot was different. It didn’t matter what happened to him.

 

“No,” Spot said, “A different one.”

 

Aunt Elane took a deep breath and pulled a tissue out of her sleeve and blew her nose. “I don’t want you to do that,” she said quietly.

 

Aunt Elane wasn’t quiet.

 

“That doesn’t matter,” Spot blustered, “I’m doing it. I know you aren’t going to let me be around Boots anymore, at least for a while, but I’m going to pull it together, and I’ll be a real adult, not just some student, and you can't trust me around him I promise.”

 

Aunt Elane shook her head. “I know Boots is the most important thing to you, but I need you to consider yourself right now. Why are you dropping out of college?”

 

“I just am,” Spot said.

 

“Did you not get the GPA?”

 

“I got the GPA.”

 

“Did something happen?” Spot shook his head. Like hell he was telling Aunt Elane what happened with David. “I don’t understand why you are running away.”

 

“I’m not running away,” Spot said, feeling like he’d said this a thousand times before, “I’m nineteen. I can’t run away. There’s nowhere I’m beholden to. I can do whatever I want with my life.”

 

Aunt Elane was silent for a few minutes. She turned off the stove and spooned the chicken noodle soup into two bowls. She sniffed and handed one to Spot.

 

“Are you seriously feeding me right now?” Spot asked.

 

“I am,” Aunt Elane said, “Sit down.”

 

He followed her to the living room and sat at the small wooden table in the corner.

 

“You are running away,” she said simply. “You are beholden to your university and your scholarship and David.”

 

“I’m not,” Spot said.

 

“You are. I see the way you look at that boy. It is not as simple as leaving.”

 

Fuck.

 

How did everyone fucking know. It wasn’t fair that a secret that kept Spot up at night was leaking everywhere for the last five months and the fear and terror that made his hands shake at times were written off by the people in his life who acted like it was normal.

 

“When did you figure it out?” Spot asked.

 

“When you brought him here for the first time,” Aunt Elane said, “It was obvious.”

 

Fuck.

 

“It doesn’t matter,” Spot insisted, “We broke up. Or we’re on a break. Whatever. He wouldn’t care if I didn’t ever come back.”

 

“That’s not true,” Aunt Elane said, “You are running away because it solved a problem before, but do you remember what happened? You were homeless for three years. You went hungry. You were assaulted at least once that I know of.”

 

Jesus Christ. It was unfair. All of this was unfair. “I have money now,” Spot said, “And I’m not thirteen.”

 

“You’re running away because you are trying to solve the same problem. Something is threatening you.”

 

“This isn’t the same at all,” Spot insisted, hitting his spoon against the side of the bowl rapidly. “And you don’t know shit about what happened when I was a kid.”

 

“Does Boots know?”

 

No. No. No. “Boots can never know.”

 

He would never tell Boots or Aunt Elane what happened to him. He hadn’t even told Blink, really. He was pretty sure Blink figured out half of it, but the details, the smell of Lysol, the bad parts were still inside Spot and he would keep them there.

 

Foster care is fucked up was enough information for Boots. He wasn’t going to tell him that after what happened at McKellen Home, he went to an actual foster home on Long Island where the lady was a mail carrier and the guy was a third shift editor for some crappy MTV show. He was the only kid. In hindsight, that probably helped. But it didn’t help that he couldn’t sleep and got into fights in school and forgot how to eat and spent all his time in their cracked shower, even after the guy cried over their water bill. They sent him to a shrink and whispered about him until he walked in the room. One day, without knowing really why, Spot smashed the guy’s $3,000 laptop with a hammer and found himself in juvie for five weeks.

 

If he was fucked up after McKellen Home, juvie for sure didn’t fucking help.

 

After five weeks his case worker drove him to a group home in Brooklyn, and his modest relief to be back home was destroyed when he finished the intake and saw _Brayden_ in the common room.

 

The sound of the breach alarms that went off when he ran out of the group home with no money, no jacket, and no plan still ran through his head sometimes when he was trying to sleep.

 

“I don’t know what happened to you,” Aunt Elane said, “And I don’t have to know. But you aren’t thirteen anymore. You have other options besides running.”

 

“Like what?” Spot asked, surprised by how genuinely it sounded when he did.

 

“Talking,” Aunt Elane said, “It might be scary. Maybe you tried it before and it didn’t work. But you have people who will listen to you now. You have David.”

 

What did Aunt Elane know? She was wrong about one thing. He’d never tried talking about this when he was younger. Never. The first person he’d told was Blink and he’d fucking gone off and acted like an asshole, at least he did the other day. He’d told David a piece, and David didn’t get it. He didn’t get it at all.

 

“I tried,” Spot said, “He doesn’t understand. He’s never gone through anything like this.”

 

“Does he have to?” Aunt Elane asked.

 

No. It was probably better that he didn’t. That he never could. Even Blink who studied it, but maybe had never gone through it, couldn’t handle it exactly right. That didn’t make him a bad person. It didn’t make David a bad person. Maybe it didn’t make Spot a bad person either.

 

Maybe.

 

“I don’t want to lose David,” he said, “I don’t.” Speaking the words out loud for the first time makes him feel like a child. Wanting things is for children. Children who get what they want, not him. His wants are simple. He wanted a house in Brooklyn, but he couldn’t even get a room, not without a degree. He wanted money for food, but now that he had it he could barely get himself to use it. He wanted time with Boots, but he was confessing to Aunt Elane even though it was going to keep them apart.

 

He wanted David.

 

He wanted David so badly.

 

But he wasn’t talking to him, and he let him leave without even trying.

 

He was nineteen. He wasn't on the run anymore. And he was maybe the kind of person now who could get what he wants. The only things in his way were his fault, his responsibility, which meant that he was the one who can change them.

 

“I have to go,” he said, getting up quickly.

 

Aunt Elane didn’t stand. Aunt Elane was sick. “You don’t want your soup?” she asked.

 

“Um, later?” he asked, “Like another day?”

 

Aunt Elane nodded. “Call me when you are settled,” she said, “We will talk.”

 

* * *

 

 

Spot didn’t go back to the apartment. He didn’t pack a bag. He didn’t call Kloppman or Denton. He just got on the subway to Penn Station. The subway was hot and crowded but he could handle it. He had a plan now. He was getting what he wanted.

 

At Penn Station, he found the Amtrak ticket booth. As he waited in line his heart raced. He checked his phone. The battery was at 4% but it would last long enough for a quick phone call. To David. He had to talk to David.

 

When it was his turn he stepped up to the window, wallet in hand.

 

“I need a ticket for your next train to Chicago.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been a while! Hopefully you still remember the boys names. Combination of being sick, going on vacation and this chapter frankly being a toughie! Thank you for sticking around and being patient, I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> I'm not sure if it will be one more chapter or two, we will have to see. It might be a while before the next chapter but in the meantime if you want to request a drabble on Flash Courses or tumblr (rudeflower) go for it!


	16. The Words

David took some time to walk around his neighborhood before he went home. He had to process what he’d just heard.

 

It wasn’t just the content of what Spot had told him. It was the fact that he did, and that it coincided with David feeling ready to start again. It had to be a sign, that they were moving in the right direction, right? But where was Spot? And why was he going to Philadelphia?

 

He started to call Jack first before he realized that Jack—as great as he was—wouldn’t have answers. So he hung up and called Blink.

 

Who was not helpful.

 

“Spot has lit-er-al-ly never mentioned Philadelphia. I don’t think the boy’s ever been south of Brighton Beach.”

 

David turned a corner and passed the toy store that he used to steal matchbox cars from. “Okay, but has he mentioned like, leaving town?”

 

Blink sighed. “I don’t know,” he said, “last we talked we fought? So he wouldn’t confide in me.”

 

Damn it.

 

He tried Spot’s phone again. No answer.

 

It wasn’t like he could do anything. There was nothing he could control about Spot, nor did he really want to. He just hoped he wasn’t leaving forever.

 

At home, there was no room for him to be bereft about Spot going to—Philadelphia? He heard the chaos as the walked up to the steps and it came in full force when he opened the front door.

 

Mama and Les were doing their level best to pull the refrigerator away from the door and Papa was yelling “Don’t strain yourselves!” and Sarah was sorting through a pile of food on the kitchen table and unceremoniously dumping a bag of lettuce into the trash that had been pulled up next to her.

 

The moment struck him as similar to what happened when his father fell or Les had a nosebleed. Everyone had a job and was doing it stoically and Papa was yelling.

 

“What’s happening?” David asked loudly.

 

“David!” Mama said, sounding almost upset with him, “where have you been?”

 

“I told you I was—wait why is Sarah throwing out food?”

 

Mama gave the fridge a good hard yank and pulled it away from the wall. “The refrigerator died. We need you to fix it.”

 

David laughed sharp and loud. “You what?”

 

Mama swept hair off her face. “We need you to fix it! It looks like it’s been down all day, the food is warm. We have to get rid of most of it. Can you get back here and see what’s wrong?”

 

David knew he was supposed to get on his hands and knees and try to figure it out. But he knew nothing about the appliance and didn’t want to fry this brain electrocuting himself. And he was annoyed. First Spot was running away to _Philadelphia_ and now his parents expected him to what, fix a refrigerator? When he was bereft?

 

“I don’t know how to do that,” David said.

 

“Oh come now David,” Papa said, “You fixed the toaster and the microwave!”

 

David scrubbed his face. Sarah was still loudly throwing food in the trash and all he saw was money disappearing. “The toasted had a piece of bread wedged in it, and I invoked the warranty on the microwave. That’s it. I can’t do this.”

 

Les said, “I’ll do it!”

 

“No,” Mama said, “Come, David. You’re home, you can do this.”

 

“I can’t,” David insisted loudly, “I can’t do anything.”

 

“I can!” Les insisted. “Let me do it!”

 

Why was he doing this? Why wasn’t he calling Spot? Why did he come home at all?

 

“Can’t you call the landlord?” David asked. He hadn’t taken more than two steps into the apartment. If he was wearing a coat he wouldn’t have taken it off. His bag was still hitched on his back, his phone was in hand. He could leave.

 

Sarah laughed. “You haven’t been gone _that_ long.”

 

Their apartment was only leased for two people, their landlord pretended not to know there were five people crammed into it in exchange for them never for asking for anything they had a right to, ever.

 

“Call an electrician,” David said.

 

“David just try!” Papa cried, passionate voice cracking through the apartment.

 

David huffed and threw his bag on the floor. He took three steps towards the fridge and got down on his knees. He stuck his head behind the fridge and took a moment to breathe as the apartment fell quiet. There was a grill, and some wires and coils but not as many as he expected. Nothing he could touch or interact with to fix anything.

 

He couldn’t fix anything.

 

But he wanted to. It wasn’t that he was unwilling to try or give things a shot. It was that he knew there were things outside of his control, outside of his skillset. He wasn’t about to hurt himself trying to fix what wasn’t his business.

 

He backed up and rose to his feet. “You need to fix this yourselves,” he said quietly.

 

“David!” Mama said, surprised.

 

“I can’t do this for you,” he said.

 

“I can!” Les insisted.

 

‘Les can’t either.”

 

Sarah stopped dumping food in the trash. She looked at him levelly, nodding. She looked pleased, almost proud. This was what she was aiming for, David realized, when they talked earlier.

 

“Sarah?” Mom asked.

 

“I’ll call an electrician,” Sarah said. “I’ll take care of it.”

 

With an invisible jolt, David realized what he had done. Not just now, not just with this fridge business but with going to off to college and leaving her alone to get promoted at Walgreens and call electricians.

 

It wasn’t fair.

 

“I’ll take care of it,” David offered, “I can pay for it.”

 

“It’s not your fridge anymore,” Sarah said breezily. “I’ll take care of it.”

 

“It’s not your fridge either,” David said, looking only at her.

 

“It’s everyone’s fridge!” Papa said, “What is going on with you two?”

 

Sarah shook her head. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and stood tall. “It’s my fridge as much as it was yours, and I get to decide, okay? So I’ll pay for it.”

 

It wasn’t fair.

 

But it was their choice.

 

The butter was decreed not bad, so Les—indignant with the implication that he couldn’t do _anything—_ made buttered noodles for dinner. David desperately wanted a beer or a rum and coke but there was nothing but water and tea in their apartment. There was some shift at the dinner table, like Mama and Papa knew that he had rejected them in some way, and were hurt by it. There was less talk than there had been before, but David found he didn’t mind much. It gave him room to think.

 

If he wasn’t responsible for his family.

 

And he wasn’t responsible for Spot.

 

That didn’t mean that he had to walk away from both of them. All of them. It didn’t mean the relationship was over. It meant that he was able to have a relationship with them that wasn’t just about saving them. Maybe one day he could say no to giving his family money if he needed it first. Maybe he could watch Spot sit up in bed panting for breath and care about him without needing anything else.

 

That didn’t change that it seemed like Spot was running away and as soon as David had a moment, he needed to give him a call. Not to save him, but to find out what the fuck was happening.

 

But when the family sat down for a movie and David begged off for a walk, his calls when straight to Spot’s nonexistent voicemail. He didn’t bother leaving a message that wouldn’t be checked. Instead, he texted, _Philadelphia?_ which was extraordinarily restrained for what he really wanted to say.

 

_“Am I the only one who wants to get together again? Are you running away to start a new life? Are we done? What is going on in that brain of yours? I won’t fight to be a piece of luggage in the life you’ve chosen.”_

He did not send that.

 

Instead, he went to bed with his phone next to his head and the ringer on loud. He was rewarded when the text tone trilled loudly, bringing groans from Les and Sarah. Les threw a pillow at his head.

 

David sat up quickly and took his phone in hand.

 

_Philadelphia?_

Good. A text from Spot. Even at three in the morning, it was good to have confirmation he was alive. Sarah sat up in bed.

 

“Who is it?” she whispered.

 

“Spike,” David said.

 

“Ohhh,” Sarah said, “mending fences?”

 

“I hope so,” David whispered.

 

“Well take your hammer outside, I have to work in the morning.”

 

David reached under his bed for his shoes and jammed his feet in. He groped around for his keys until Sarah made a put upon noise and reached into her purse by her bed and handed her his. He smiled at her and started composing his reply as he walked out the door.

 

_Isn’t there where you’re going?_

_No?_

David scrambled to understand what he’d assumed but he had no confirmation of. So Spot wasn’t leaving New York. Why would he be? He had an apartment and Boots and a life in New York. It was so silly of him to get all spun up about something that he’d heard in the background of a two-second phone call.

 

_That’s what the announcement was in the background when you called me. I should have figured, you’d never leave New York, all other cities are beneath you._

_Right_

What did that mean?

 

_Right?_

There was a long pause while David stood, leaning against his parent’s building, waiting. Despite the heat of the late summer, he expected it to start snowing or to feel a chill on his bare arms. He looked over the neighborhood he’d grown up in, that had no idea what he’d gone through in the last year. He wondered if anyone had ever gone through anything he’d had, exactly, standing on this corner waiting for anything to happen. Anything.

 

Finally, a text came through.

 

_Can I call you in the morning? I don’t want the ire of this entire train car to deal with if I talk._

_Train car?_

This pause was shorter, but it was long enough for David to predict with a racing heartbeat what was coming.

_I’m coming to Chicago. I’m coming to you._

* * *

 

Spot wasn’t sure if David knew that he’d never left New York City.

 

He’d asked him back over winter break if Spot had ever been out of the state, but he’d begged off. Changed the subject. Spot didn’t exactly spout stories about his childhood the way David did, but it might have been noticeable that his stories never left the boroughs.

 

It was unlikely, someone in the system as often as he was, would never be put in a placement in upstate or something. Long Island was an affront as it was. But he’d read books and seen movies and he thought he understood how large and varied America was.

 

He didn’t.

 

He got a window seat, next to a stocky guy his age in an NYU sweatshirt who he barely looked at because the window demanded all of his attention.

 

Even in the thick of Central Park, it was impossible not to see the tops of buildings, to know the city was there. Very quickly the city turned to Upstate New York turned to woods and woods and nothing else then turned into fields and it was nothing but fields for an impossibly long time.

 

There were no buildings behind the fields. There were occasional small houses, occasional tractors, churches. But mostly fields. Every once in a while the train would stop, and a seemingly impossible number of people would be at each stop despite there being absolutely no civilization surrounding the station.

 

Spot knew exactly how to navigate New York. You could drop him on any corner with no money, and he’d end the day up $200 with a cell phone and new coat. But he would be useless anywhere else.

 

Including on this train. A few shaky walks confirmed there was nowhere to buy a phone charger. He cursed himself for failing to pack it in his backpack. At least he had his laptop and charger, and a change of clothes and stash of cash, like he always did. But what he really needed was a phone charger. What if Blink or David or Race or David was trying to contact him?

 

What he wanted to contact them?

 

He didn’t know David’s address. He couldn’t exactly wander around Chicago hoping to run into him. He knew Chicago was puny, but that didn’t mean he’d be able to find David. The plan—or lack thereof, fell apart as it grew dark. There were no streetlights along the fields and train tracks, so for the first time in his life, Spot found himself naturally plunged into entire darkness. It stirred something inside him, made him uncomfortable. This wasn’t the way the world was supposed to be. He felt like a tiny ion as he looked out the window at nothing but his own face reflected in the grass.

 

The guy sitting next to him foisted his phone charger on Spot and grunted for him to stop typing so damn loud on his laptop.

 

So Spot got David’s text. So he texted him back.

 

It occurred to him, probably belatedly as he was rolling through what was quickly becoming the Midwest, that this could backfire. If David didn’t want him there what would he do? See the bean? Eat a weird hot dog? This could all be a bust. And he couldn’t just show up at David’s apartment because he didn’t know where it was except West Rogers Park. He didn’t think much before sending

 

_I’m coming to Chicago. I’m coming to you._

 

It looked too sentimental, on his screen. He’d been writing, before the guy next to him told him to shut up, and that explained the overly flowery language. Still, David seemed to respond to it.

 

_HOLY GUACAMOLE._

_So we’ll talk in the morning?_

_UH YEAH, WE WILL TALK IN THE MORNING._

He couldn’t help but picture David is his famous apartment in Chicago, trying to sleep. Spot tried to sleep too but it was impossible so at seven Chicago time he texted David asking if they could talk. David immediately replied

 

_Never went to sleep thanks to your dramatics. Yeah. Now._

He found a booth in the viewing car that was surrounded by people but broadcasted the now decidedly Midwestern landscape outside. He stared at wind turbines—bigger than anything he’d ever imagined—while the phone rang.

 

David picked up after two rings. “Before we start, any other wild proclamations to make?”

 

The too soon, dangerous words.

 

“Nope,” Spot said.

 

“Because you’ve been _out of control._ I appreciate you telling me that stuff you told me on our last phone call. Like. It wasn’t needed. But it was needed. I don’t appreciate you hanging up on me?”

 

“My phone was dying.”

 

“Sure. Also the drama of telling me that you were coming here. Wow. Spot. Should we get you a skull to hold?” David was in rare form, and it was delightful. Spot couldn’t help but smile, even though he was the one being roasted.

 

“Shut up.” Spot slunk down in his booth, eyeing the people around him. It didn’t matter if they heard him, would it? What would they think, that he had someone who was mad at him? Did they even care an iota if he was gay or if it was his boyfriend? Hopefully his boyfriend.

 

“So you’re coming to Chicago,” David said.

 

“I’m coming to Chicago.”

 

“For the pizza, right?” David asked, “I’d come across the country for our pizza too.”

 

“For this guy I’m into,” Spot corrected, forcing his eyes not to flick across the train car and scan for reactions. “To try to win him back, see.”

 

David was quiet for a minute.

 

“You’re not in some private sleeping car, are you?”

 

“No,” Spot confirmed, “I’m surrounded by people.”

“I have a lot going on,” David said, “with my family. I wanted to talk to you about it.”

 

“You can.”

 

“Our fridge broke.”

 

Spot waited for more. Nothing came. “That doesn’t sound like a big deal?”

 

“It was a huge deal,” David said, “I think I had an epiphany.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Yeah. I think I realized something big. We can be together, and I don’t have to save you.”

 

Spot rubbed his eyes and laughed. “Okay. Good. Because I don’t need to be saved. But I need you.”

 

“You do.”

 

David’s response didn’t reveal his feelings. Which was to be expected, Spot figured. But he hoped so hard. Harder than he’d hoped for anything he had before. So he opened his big fucking mouth.

 

“This has been awful, us fighting. I have a right to want things, don’t I? I want you. You don’t have to want me back, like. I can get off this train in Ohio and get a return ticket. I will. I promise. But if you want me there, I’m coming and I’m going to kiss you.”

 

He could hear the smile in David’s voice. “Oh, you’re going to kiss me?”

 

“If you’re okay with it.”

 

“In Union Station?”

 

“What’s that?”

 

“That’s the train station where I’m picking you up.”

 

“If you want to.”

 

The idea of it was terrifying but somehow less than it had been a week ago. People knew and they didn’t care. They did care, actually, they cared about Spot and David and how they were doing, not that they were gay. These people in the train car didn’t care at all what Spot was saying. He’d never been to Chicago, but he figured it wasn’t so conservative that anyone cared there either.

 

David sighed. “I don’t expect you to start kissing me in public. You don’t owe it to me to be out.”

 

“No,” Spot agreed, “I think…I think I owe it to me.”

 

* * *

 

When he got upstairs and everyone was getting ready, it occurred to him to clean, but the apartment was as clean and organized as it could be. There was nowhere to hid his stuff, and no way to not make it obvious that his parent's bed took over the living room and his bedroom was basically three beds crammed into a space that was small for one person. But he wasn’t afraid that Spot would judge him. He’d known this life, too.

 

But where would he sleep?

 

During the morning rush of his mom and Sarah going to work and Les going to camp and Papa taking his pills, he stopped everyone.

 

“Um,” he said, “Spot is coming. Today. At noon.”

 

Everyone stopped, frozen where they were packing their lunches. “That’s wonderful David!” Mama said, the first one to break. “So you two have worked it out?”

 

“Yes,” David said, “I think we have.”

 

Papa didn’t stand from where he was retrieving pills from his tray. “It seemed like it was pretty serious between you two,” he observed, “a pretty serious problem.”

 

“We’ve been talking about it for weeks,” David said, “and he’s coming. And I’m really…really happy about it. So, can he stay here?”

 

In a comical moment, the four of them looked around the apartment. “Where?” Sarah asked.

 

David knew his parents were accepting, and reasonably progressive, but that didn’t mean he could propose sharing his twin bed with Spot. But what was the alternative? Him sleeping on the floor in a room with David’s parents?

 

So.

 

“We’ll get a—” David started.

 

Mama cut him off. “We will figure it out. Yours is welcome here, David. We will make room. I get off work at noon today, you two sightsee a bit, and I’ll make space for him here.”

 

David didn’t know how that was possible, but he chose this moment to believe in his mother so he nodded. “Are you sure it’s okay?”

 

“Yes,” Mama said decisively, giving Papa a firm look. “We have plenty of room.”

 

He went to the store and starting buying Spot’s favorite non-perishable foods—which was mainly candy. He chose an internship shirt, his cotton button-up blue shirt, and combed his hair.

 

It wasn’t like Spot forgot what he looked like, but he could put some effort in.

 

On the train ride to Union Station, he stared out the window and watched the familiar buildings pass by. He didn’t spend much time downtown growing up, but he still knew what the views looked like on nearly every line. This was only the second time he’d been home since leaving for school, but it still struck him how nostalgic the views were now, less than a year later.

 

Union Station came up quickly. He was early so he stopped in the Walgreens on the corner and bought Spot a Chicago flag t-shirt, just for fun. Then he got to the great room and waited.

 

Groups of passengers came out in waves, and David stood, waiting. Finally, a larger wave of tired looking people came into the great room and David saw him. Far in the back, wearing his black hoodie, nervously running his hands through his hair as he walked. His gaze pinged around the room before he landed on David, and smiled shyly.

 

David broke out into a grin. He started walking towards him, and Spot picked up the pace. People passed by them on either side when they landed in front of each other, smiling stupidly.

 

“You don’t have to kiss me,” David said. “I know that was a heat of the moment, and like—”

 

Spot stepped forward and kissed him. He reached down for David’s free hand and laced their fingers together and kissed him. More than the feeling of Spot’s lips on his, he felt the press of their shoulders touching, their fingers pressed together, their lives connecting like this for a moment. The kiss itself was contained, chaste, but more than they’ve ever done in public.

 

It lasted for a few seconds before David pulled away. Spot stepped back and looked around.

 

He didn’t find it necessary to point out that no one was looking at them because no one cared. The look on Spot’s face told him he’d come to that conclusion on his own.

“Wow,” Spot said quietly, “no stones thrown.”

 

“Someone’s been reading the Bible?”

 

Spot stepped forward and kissed him again, putting his hand on the back of David’s head in the way David loved. It made David a little dizzy and he kissed back, risking touching the back of Spot’s neck. This one was less chaste—his parents would be horrified to know he was going on like this in public. It was incredible.

 

This time Spot was the one to pull away. “Okay, he said, somewhat breathlessly, “so I’m here.”

 

“Finally,” David said. “So. Millennium Park? The Art Institute? State Street?”

 

Spot fiddled with his backpack and shrugged. “Is that rock shop near here?”

 

It took David a minute to remember what he was talking about. He and Spot had been to a rock shop in Manhattan, where Spot had offered to buy him every rock he looked at, and David now remembered telling him about the rock shop in Evanston.

 

“It’s in the suburbs,” David said, “it’s really far away. We’re right by, like, world-class tourist destinations. And you’re a tourist. So we should—”

 

“Can we get to the suburbs?” Spot asked.

 

“We can.”

 

“I want to go there then.”

 

David looked around the great room and thought of the museums and parks all around them that Spot would love. That _he_ would love. But he would go to the rock shop, for sure, if that’s what Spot wanted.

 

 

* * *

 

 

On the l they didn’t hold hands, but they sat close, and Spot looked backwards out the window at Chicago passing them by. It was so different from Manhattan or Brooklyn in a way he couldn’t describe, not just because the subway was above ground and seemed to teeter in a way that made him nervous that they would fall down into the street.

 

“Did you take this all the time?” he asked David.

 

“I used to take it to go to school when I went to the magnet school,” David said. “It’s basically the same as the subway.”

 

“It’s better than the subway,” Spot disagreed, pointing out the window, “you have views.”

 

They had to change trains once and rode the second train for a short time before getting off in a suburb that didn’t look at all how Spot imagined suburbs to look like.

 

The street was wide and open and David said if they walked not too far east they would get to the lake. They would do that after, David said.

 

The rock shop was different than the one in Manhattan. It had light and polished stones with words on them and no metal bucket. David stepped away from Spot, skimming his fingers over a pile of polished stones. Spot stayed in the center of the store but walked along parallel with David.

 

The shop was empty, even of visible employees, and Spot felt like he was in a dream.

 

“I used to come here with Sarah,” David said, “we would come here after school and save up our pennies to buy the little shiny ones. The guy who runs it, he caught on and he started giving us extra rocks for free. He was a good guy.”

 

“There was a bakery I went to growing up that gave me the badly iced cookies,” Spot said.

 

David smiled at him. “I love when people are good.”

 

Spot hummed.

 

“Was there a particular reason you wanted to come here, or?” David asked.

 

“You told me you liked it,” Spot said, unable to explain the poem, what that day in the rock shop had meant to him. How it was the first time the words came through his mind, watching David relax as he touched the stones and dodge private school kids. “You said there was a museum in the basement?”

 

David lit up. “Yes!” he reached out for Spot’s hand and he offered it. They walked down a set of narrow stairs together.

 

The museum was dark, with glass displays and shadows that reminded him somehow of a subway station despite being nothing like a subway station. It was cool and the light from the displays cast on David’s beautiful face.

 

“Is it what you expected?” David asked.

 

“I love you,” Spot said.

 

The words left him like air. It happened too naturally to be scary or regrettable. Because standing in this basement museum with the cool air on his skin, David’s hand warm in his, he loved David. He loved him in the dorm when they ate Chinese food, and he loved him in Central Park. He didn’t even need him to say it back.

 

David slowly turned from gazing at a cut stone. “Oh,” he said.

 

Fuck.

 

“Oh.”

 

“Oh wow,” David said, “No. Wow. I love you too. I do.”

 

“You do?”

 

“I do,” David confirmed, stepping close to Spot. “Holy shit. I love you.”

 

“I love you,” Spot said, “We should say something else now.”

 

David kissed him.

 

Alone in the basement on a rock shop, they kissed like two people who had just told each other they were in love for the first time.

 

“Holy shit,” David sighed, pressing his forehead against Spot’s. “Okay. We shouldn’t carry on anymore. We’ll embarrass the rocks.”

 

“Can’t have that,” Spot joked. He didn’t move. He kept his eyes closed, just in a case he opened them and none of it was real. “Remember when we didn’t know each other?”

 

“Let’s never go back to that,” David said.

 

Spot laughed and squeezed David’s hand. “I don’t think that’s possible.”

 

An employee finally became visible and Spot bought a single rock of blue apatite and David bought a handful of shiny silver stones. Before they got two steps away from the register they switched bags, wordlessly accepting the gifts from one another.

 

The sun shone through the glass windows and as they stepped outside the air was warm and clean. Spot reached out for David’s hand and stepped onto the street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow I can't believe this one is over! Thank you for your patience as this chapter took it's time to take form. And thank you so so so much for reading and your AMAZING comments. I so cherish them and totally haunt my inbox on the days after I post, excited with every email I get that someone has kindly shared their thoughts! I have made friends with this fic, which is the most amazing thing, and gone on a really cool journey with these boys. 
> 
> And the journey continues! I've written future fic that hinged on y'all knowing the boys were together that I'm excited to start posting. 
> 
> Thank you so much for coming on this journey with me! I appreciate all of you.


End file.
